


The Only Thing To Fear

by Rubywolf



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Whump, get your tropes here, thasmin, tw: attempted assault (but nothing actually happens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2020-11-25 17:34:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubywolf/pseuds/Rubywolf
Summary: After receiving a message asking for help, Yaz, the Doctor, and Najia embark on an adventure that makes them confront their fears, and in the process, come to some realizations about love and family. Featuring Yaz learning things about herself, the Doctor having to actually open up a bit, and Najia being everyone's mum. Sloooowww burn. :)Update March 23: Y'all when I started writing this over a year ago, I had NO IDEA I'd be posting the last chapters during a real life event that parallels the story. I wanted to mention in the summary that this fic involves a viral infection on a future planet... so just in case you're sick to death of hearing about viruses, you're not shocked when it comes up. :)





	1. The Date

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This fic is about 80% written, so I'm planning to go ahead and post on a fairly regular schedule. 
> 
> I debated whether or not to tag the attempted assault, and decided better safe than sorry. The first chapter is the only instance like it. I do seem to like putting Yaz in peril though.
> 
> So I'm a total sucker for slow burn, and I love exploring family dynamic. I loved what little we got to see of Najia's character, and I feel like family is so important to Yaz there had to be the exploration of that, too. Anyway.... enjoy!

It was about thirty minutes into the blind date when Yaz finally admitted to herself that she had never been less interested in someone in her life.

She could kind of see why Sonya had set her up with Tom, though. He was attractive enough, with his sandy brown hair and lanky figure. He’d picked Yaz up at her flat promptly at 7, and had kept Yaz laughing nearly the entire drive to the diner with his surprisingly sharp wit. “And he’s in a band!” Sonya had exclaimed. “C’mon, Yaz, you haven’t been out in ages.”

“I dunno, Son,” Yaz had crinkled her nose.

“Seriously, you’re never going to find anyone if you keep going like this. Are you actually trying to be alone??”

It was a cheap shot, but it had struck a nerve. So Yaz had agreed.

The Tom that sat in front of her, though, two beers in, was turning out to be a vastly different man than the one who had picked her up. “So why did you decide to be a fed?” he asked around a mouthful of pizza, staring directly at her shirt.

Yaz picked at the fish and chips he had ordered for her, much to her annoyance. “Well,” she started, “a lot of reasons. Mostly because I want to help people. I know what it’s like to be bullied for being different, and I wanted to stand up to the bullies of the world. Let the people being picked on know that they’re not alone, you know?” She absentmindedly chased the ice in her soda around the glass with her straw. “It just seemed like the profession where I might actually make a difference.”

She glanced up to see Tom smirking. “I would think that would be a really tough job for a woman to do.”

Yaz pursed her lips. “I don’t mind a challenge.”

“Mmm. You know what I think?” Tom asked, barely waiting for her to respond before barreling forward. “I think someday you’ll want kids, and then you won’t want to be in danger on the job all the time.”

_I asked the Doctor to bring me back to Sheffield tonight for this??_ Yaz opened her mouth to tell him off, before realizing that she was still going to have to endure an entire drive back to her flat with Tom. Her mum had taken the car to work and wouldn’t be able to come and get her if she called, so it was best not to argue with her ride home. Instead of telling him off like she was dying to do, Yaz took a large sip of her soda, grimacing at the funky taste of too much carbonation and sneaking a glance at her watch. All she had to do was endure his one-sided conversation until he had finished enough of his meal that it would be appropriate to ask to leave, and then she was going to make sure her sister knew that she was never going on a blind date with someone again.

Ten minutes later, though, and roughly halfway into Tom’s rant on current politics, Yaz was done. She was bored out of her mind, rapidly developing a headache, and genuinely concerned that he was never going to shut up. “Hey Tom?” she interrupted him. “I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m not feeling all that great. Would it be alright if you took me home?”

“What’s wrong?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, just, sometimes fluorescent lights give me a headache,” she lied. 

“Huh, okay,” Tom agreed. “Tell you what. I’ll go pay, you stay here and finish your drink. Gotta hydrate a headache,” he told her with an obnoxious wink.

Yaz watched him make his way up to the hostess. Truthfully, she was a bit surprised that he had conceded so easily, but at least this disastrous night was almost over. She pulled out her phone and texted her sister a single rolling-eyes emoji. Sonya responded almost immediately with a sad face, followed by “forever alone then”.

Irritated, Yaz typed out several snarky responses before backspacing out of them and staring moodily out the window. It wasn’t like she _wanted_ to fail at dating, whatever Sonya might say. If anything, she was more than a bit worried that she was never going to find anyone, ever, and she would just be that pathetic single aunt that had like, fourteen cats and never got kissed. 

She didn’t feel like it was her fault, though, that she never found herself interested in the guys she met. And everyone else made it look so easy. Surely if someone as obnoxious as Sonya could find people to date her, why should Yaz have so much trouble? She didn’t feel like she was asking for much, all she wanted was someone to love, share her life and adventures with, like her parents had with each other. And yet, deep down, the nagging fear that she would never find that for herself was taking hold.

She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the recent numbers, growing more and more irritated with herself for overthinking one little bad date. Her finger hovered over the odd string of numbers from that time the Doctor had used her phone to call the TARDIS, and she wondered if it would accept a text. No harm in trying, she decided as she hit the message button and started to type out a message.

Tom came back and slid into the seat across from her again, tucking a receipt in his pocket and smiling in what he probably thought was a charming manner. “Alright. Just finish your drink and then we’ll go.”

Yaz gave him a polite smile. “I’m ready when you are.”

Tom pushed her soda closer. “Seriously. Hydration. It’ll do you good.”

Yaz couldn’t believe someone could be so infuriating, but she really just wanted to get home, so she finished the last few sips and stood up. “Home, then,” she said pointedly.

He stood up and placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her towards the door. Annoyed, Yaz walked a touch faster, trying to distance herself, but before she quite knew how it happened he was alongside her, arm wrapped around her and his finger snagged in the belt loop of her jeans. An uncomfortably possessive gesture, she realized as they stepped into the cool night air.

They were barely out the doors when Tom pulled her closer, his entire body pressed up against hers. “Why don’t we go back to my place instead?” he suggested as he guided her back to his car.

“No, I’d really just like to go home,” Yaz said, wondering how he could _possibly_ have misread her signals so thoroughly. She certainly didn’t think she’d said or done anything that might have given him the idea she was interested in continuing this date.

“Oh come on,” he said in what she was sure he thought was an alluring tone, lowering his voice and dipping his head so his lips brushed her ear. “Where’s your sense of fun?” 

Yaz shuddered and tried to duck away, a sudden rush of dizziness nearly forcing her backwards into his arms. It took her a minute to put the pieces together, things she felt like she should have seen coming from the minute they sat down at the diner- Tom had practically demanded she have a beer too and only relented when she cited religious reasons for not drinking, when he had waved off the waiter offering to take away and refill her soda when it was half gone, when he had insisted she finish the soda before they left. A sinking feeling of dread settled in the pit of her stomach. “Oh god,” she whispered, trying to push him off, “what did you put in my drink?”

He pretended not to hear her. “Just get in the car, Yaz.”

“No!” She awkwardly utilized one of the moves she was taught in the self defense course of her police training, succeeding only in getting a few steps away from Tom and his car. “I don’t want to go to your place, I’m not even interested in you!” She pulled out her phone, fumbling with the lock screen and then with the messaging app before she tripped over the uneven sidewalk.

“What do you mean you’re not interested?” he said roughly, storming over and yanking her up off the ground. “You sat through a whole meal with me. Which I paid for, by the way, so you owe me.”

Yaz swiped desperately at her phone as a hundred horrible futures floated through her mind. This was exactly the sort of situation women were taught to be mindful of, and she had missed it, and now she was going to be a statistic, just another number in a long line of assault accusations, or worse. She thought of her coworkers conducting a search for her after a missed shift, finding her body dumped somewhere, and the thought made her struggle harder. “No,” she tried to yell, horrified to realize that she was already too weak to make a proper scene. “Let me go.”

Tom only smirked and wrapped his arm around her again, forcing her up against him as she struggled. “It’s always a good first date if I get lucky.”

“Yaz?” A clear, high voice came from behind them, causing Tom to swear under his breath and turn around. Yaz turned, too, and not ten yards away was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen: the Doctor, hands in her pockets and blonde hair blowing slightly in the cool breeze. She almost sobbed in relief. If the Doctor was here, she was safe.

Tom tightened his fingers on Yaz’s waist, as though to silently warn her not to move. “Who are you?” he asked warily, giving the Doctor an assessing look.

The Doctor shrugged, strolling casually forward. “Oh, you know, a friend of Yaz’s. Who are you?” she asked, taking in the way his arm snaked around Yaz’s waist, the way Yaz’s hands gripped his arm as she tried to pry him off. Her eyes narrowed. “More importantly, what have you done to Yaz?”

Tom laughed nervously. “She had a little too much to drink at dinner.”

“No,” Yaz protested, swaying, struggling to catch her breath.

“Yaz doesn’t drink alcohol,” the Doctor said, this time stepping right up into his face. “I’m going to ask you again,” she said, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice, “and I don’t want a lie this time. What have you done to Yaz?”

“I haven’t done anything, and what’s it to you anyway?” Tom snapped. “What are you, her girlfriend?”

The Doctor made no move, except one eyebrow quirking upwards. “I think you’ve drugged her. Nobody drugs my friends,” she told him, a thinly veiled threat in her tone as she held her hand out to Yaz. “I’ll take her home from here.”

Tom stared daggers at the Doctor as Yaz gratefully took her offered hand like a lifeline. “She’d have been a lousy shag anyway,” he spat, shoving her forcefully towards the Doctor. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with her.” Yaz yelped as she fell, and Tom stormed off into his car and sped away.

The Doctor staggered backwards as she caught Yaz, gently lowering her into a sitting position on the ground and kneeling next to her. “Yaz! Are you okay? What did he give you?” she asked, lifting Yaz’s chin to look into her unfocused eyes.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” Yaz slurred, gasping for air. “I was so scared.” Her limbs were impossibly heavy as she tried to move, and she found herself slumping into the Doctor’s arms, unable to catch a breath.

“No, hey, Yaz, stay with me!” The Doctor’s worried voice just barely cut through the muffled ringing in Yaz’s ears. She wanted to stay awake, but she couldn’t breathe, and the Doctor was saying something in panicked tones she couldn’t quite make out, and then all was black.


	2. A&E

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems like I get to add to the whump tag!

_”Najia, it’s the Doctor, I’m so sorry, it’s... It’s about Yaz, I don’t think she… I mean she’s... ah, well, I’ve taken her to A&E, you’d better come too, fast as you can-“_

Najia burst into A&E, near tears and sick with worry. It had been two and a half hours since her phone had rang at work with Yaz’s caller ID three times in immediate succession, and she’d finally answered to a panicked Doctor on the other end of the line. Najia could barely make out her words, which hardly mattered as the Doctor didn’t have any useful information for her anyway, aside from the fact that Yaz was in the hospital. She couldn’t even tell her if Yaz was alive or not, and that was the only information Najia had been given for _two and a half hours_, despite calling A&E herself and demanding to talk to someone, and she was nearly out of her mind with grief and worry and rage that _nobody would tell her anything_. 

On top of it all, she’d been delayed leaving work at the new downtown Hilton she managed, and then she’d tried to reach her husband to see if he could get to A&E and get any more information but she couldn’t reach him, and then she’d been accosted by an angry customer just as she was heading out the doors, someone screaming about something wildly inconsequential in the face of her daughter’s hospitalization. She hadn’t been terribly nice to them, and she was sure that was going to be a talking point at her next performance review. Between that delay and the traffic she’d encountered on the way in, it was nothing short of a miracle that Najia herself didn’t need a room at A&E.

She signed herself in with shaking hands as the nurse pulled Yaz’s chart and finally gave her the answers she so desperately needed. “We’ve treated Yasmin for a severe drug overdose,” the nurse, whose name Najia didn’t catch in her relief to hear Yaz was alive, was explaining. “She’s stable for now, we’re just waiting for her to regain consciousness and then we’ll be able to see what sort of recovery time we’re looking at.” The nurse gestured for Najia to follow her and led her towards an elevator. “Fortunately, Sarah got her here just in time. Another couple minutes and we probably wouldn’t have gotten Yasmin breathing again. I’d be writing her a thank-you note if I was you, she saved your daughter’s life.”

“Sorry, who?” Najia asked, mind reeling so fast it was hard to concentrate.

“Sarah Jane Smith? The woman who brought her in? She said she was contacting you.” The nurse shot Najia a quizzical look as she held open the elevator doors. 

So that must be the Doctor’s real name, Najia figured. Why she couldn’t just go by her name like a normal person instead of insisting on a stupid nickname was beyond her. “Right, yeah, of course.” Najia absently chewed a fingernail. 

The elevator doors opened at the appropriate floor, and the nurse gestured down the hall. “Room 313, you can go on in. I’ll be doing my rounds shortly and we’ll see how she’s doing. Sarah’s in there with Yasmin, too,” the nurse told Najia. 

Najia pushed open the door to the hospital room, heart pounding, terrified of what she was going to find inside. Her daughter was unconscious on the hospital bed, hooked up to a variety of machines that beeped and whirred gently, her skin an ashy grey Najia never wanted to see again. And yet despite looking so very ill, her expression was strangely peaceful. An odd mixture of panic and relief settled in Najia’s stomach. Yaz wasn’t okay, but hopefully she would be.

The Doctor- or was it Sarah?- was curled up awkwardly in a nearby chair, blonde hair and gangly limbs everywhere, with her silver coat draped over her like a blanket. Najia wondered how on earth she could be sleeping right now, and in such a strange position. There was something off about that woman, everything she’d ever seen her do was undeniably… _weird_, and Najia’s irritation with her about the phone call prickled at her subconscious again.

“Najia?” The Doctor squinted against the lights and untangled herself from the chair, coat sliding down to the floor. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” Najia said tightly, watching her struggle to sit upright.

“Nah, wasn’t really sleeping. Too worried to sleep. They did tell me to stop pacing around, though.” She tossed her coat over the arm of the chair and rubbed her eyes.

Najia looked back to Yaz and sat down in a thin plastic chair along the wall. “Has she been awake yet?”

The Doctor shook her head. “No. Well, I don’t think so, they only let me in half an hour ago.”

The silence stretched out between them, punctuated by the soft beeps of machinery. Najia sat back in her chair, feeling as though all of the adrenaline and rage and fear was draining out of her. The steady beeps were comforting, in an odd way, as if they were counting down to some unknown time when Yaz might wake up. She glanced over at the Doctor, seeing her own worry reflected in her face, and Najia realized it was unfair of her to have been so annoyed with her. She’d been left in the dark about Yaz’s condition, too. And she and Yaz were obviously close.

“I really can’t thank you enough for being there for her tonight,” Najia said at last. “The nurse said you got her here just in time.”

“I wasn’t going to take any chances, not with Yaz.” The Doctor watched Yaz for a minute with an expression Najia couldn’t quite place before continuing. “Actually, it was kind of terrifying, I’ve never seen anyone shut down that fast. I really thought I was too late.”

Najia watched her, trying to piece together what little information she knew and trying to think of a way to ask what she wanted to know. One of the few things she’d been able to get out of Yaz about her friend was that Yaz had met the Doctor on a shift with the police force, so Najia assumed the Doctor was some kind of law enforcement as well. “Is this something you see a lot in your line of work, then?” Najia asked cautiously, hoping she wasn’t about to hear all kinds of stories she didn’t want to hear.

“No, not exactly,” the Doctor replied with a little shrug. “I do seem to have a knack for finding trouble, but date rape drugs are a bit of a new one on me.”

It was one thing to have a general idea of what happened, but it was like a punch to the stomach to hear it put that way. Date rape drugs. How on earth had Yaz gotten caught up with people who would do this to her? Najia buried her face in her hands, trying to stop the sobs before they came, but they came anyway, and the Doctor was suddenly in the chair next to hers. 

“Najia?” the Doctor asked, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. “If it was something I said…”

Najia shook her head, sniffling, and the Doctor handed her a tissue. “No, it’s just… I don’t understand. How is my daughter even going out with people who would do this to her? What is she getting involved in? She hardly ever tells me what she’s doing anymore, I don’t really know any of the people she chooses to spend time with these days. When I ask her how she’s doing she clams up. It’s like I’m losing her. What am I supposed to do?” 

“None of this is your fault, Najia,” the Doctor tried to comfort her. 

“I’m her mum, it’s on me to keep her safe.” Najia blew her nose again. “I just wish she felt like she could talk to me.”

The Doctor seemed to wrestle with her words for a minute. “You know how they say truth is stranger than fiction?” she finally asked. 

Najia eyed the Doctor suspiciously. The Doctor knew _exactly_ what Yaz wasn’t telling her. “Yes,” she finally responded. “You know what it is she’s hiding, then, don’t you?”

“Najia, nobody’s hiding anything. But truth really can be complicated, there’s a lot I think she wants to tell you but thinks she can’t. She probably thinks you wouldn’t believe her.”

“That’s daft. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well,” the Doctor said carefully, “if she told you that we came across a hotel full of massive mutated spiders, and you hadn’t been there to see it with your own eyes.... what would you have thought?”

Najia frowned. It did sound ridiculous when you put it that way. But Sheffield was just a regular old town, and she doubted very much that Yaz was running into crazy situations like that all the time. Her frustration melted into resignation as she realized this conversation was going nowhere, and she pulled another tissue from the box. “She’s just never been this secretive before,” she confided to the Doctor. “It feels so out of character for her. When she was a kid, I mean even until this past year, really, she would tell me every thought that would go through her head.”

The Doctor smiled softly and sat back in her chair, too. “That’s just kids growing up, though. One day they can’t have an unexpressed thought and the next you can’t get a word out of them. No matter how close you are, they grow up and start their own lives and you don’t get all the little details anymore.”

Najia looked over at the Doctor again, confused. She definitely didn’t look old enough to have grown children, but she sounded like she spoke from experience. “You have kids, then?”

The Doctor paused. “I did have,” she answered quietly. 

Najia’s heart broke. To think that she’d possibly faced what Najia was facing tonight, only with a different result… and here she was, sitting by her side, comforting her through the pain and uncertainty, probably having to relive her own to some extent. “I’m so sorry,” she finally said, though it was a painfully inadequate thing to say. 

The Doctor carefully avoided responding, and Najia couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would make it easier for either of them.

Time wore quietly by, neither woman speaking, Yaz unnervingly motionless on the bed. You wouldn’t have mistaken her for being asleep, Najia thought, she was too still for that. Some of Najia’s relief that Yaz was alive was wearing off, she clearly wasn’t out of the woods yet. Najia was just thinking about calling the nurse and asking if there was anything else they could do for her, when a shrill tone pierced the silence. Najia very nearly jumped out of her skin before she realized it was her phone. 

It was Hakim, asking if everything was okay, finally responding to her attempts to reach him earlier. She typed out a quick response, promising to call him as soon as she had any news. Najia was shocked to note that it was nearly midnight.

“I didn’t realize it was so late,” Najia said apologetically. “Doctor, if you need to get home to your family, you don’t have to stay. I’ll have Yaz call you when she’s up tomorrow.”

The Doctor shrugged. “No family to get home to, it’s just me. I’ll stay.” Her eyes wandered to Yaz, and Najia saw a fleeting expression of desperate loneliness cross the Doctor’s face, and several things suddenly clicked into place. 

Of course Yaz had made such fast friends with her. Najia had seen that same loneliness in Yaz, first when she’d come home from school during the year she’d been bullied, more recently after long shifts at work when Yaz needed to decompress but had no one to turn to. Of course Yaz would have noticed, and would have been utterly drawn to it, both out of compassion and her own need for companionship.

Once again, Najia had the feeling that there had to be more to their relationship than they let on- or maybe they hadn’t even gotten there yet, she suddenly realized. Najia knew that Yaz was much more the type of person to begin hanging out with someone and never even notice that they fancied her. And while Najia didn’t know the Doctor very well, she couldn’t imagine that the woman was any kind of smooth operator, she didn’t act like someone trying to put the moves over on Yaz. She had seemed genuinely confused when Najia had asked if they were seeing each other that day in the hotel. But there was definitely something there, there had to be. She’d seen the way Yaz had followed the Doctor around in the hotel, the way the Doctor was watching Yaz right now like the whole universe might collapse if she didn’t wake up. 

Somehow, Najia thought dryly, the two most clueless women on the planet had found each other.

Several more minutes of silence passed, and the Doctor got up and paced around the room for a minute. “I hate being useless,” she grumbled. “Especially when time _insists_ on moving this slowly. And in the right order.” She glared at the clock on the wall, as though it was the clock’s fault Yaz was still unconscious. 

Najia chewed on a fingernail, tired and worrying, feeling her verbal filter wearing thin and frowning at the odd comment. “What’s that supposed to mean? There’s no other order for it to go in.” 

“Actually,” the Doctor started.

An odd gurgle from the bed caught both their attention, and before Najia could really clock what was happening, the Doctor was at Yaz’s side, fluidly pulling an oxygen line off her face and out of the way as Yaz threw up. 

“Yaz?” The Doctor bent down, brushing some hair out of Yaz’s face. “Can you hear me?” she asked as Yaz continued to choke. The Doctor glanced around, eyes finally landing on the emergency staff call button near the door. “Call the nurse?” she asked, the worry in her tone scaring Najia almost as much as the situation itself. 

Anxiously, Najia hit the button and approached the bed as the Doctor maneuvered Yaz into a position on her side and tilted her head to try to clear her airways and help her breathe. “Is she awake?” Najia asked nervously.

“Don’t think so, not really,” the Doctor responded, gently lifting one of Yaz’s eyelids to check for responsiveness. “Say something again?”

Najia carefully sat down on the side of the bed and took one of Yaz’s hands, her voice shaking. “Wake up, sweetheart, we’re both here. You’re safe.”

Yaz made no indication that she heard, but gagged again. This time, though, it finally seemed to jolt her into consciousness, and she coughed, trying to catch her breath. “Sorry,” she mumbled miserably after a moment.

“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. You’re ok,” Najia told her soothingly, giving her hand a little squeeze.

The nurse from earlier chose that moment to arrive, sweeping in and turning off the alarm. The Doctor gave up her place by the bed to the nurse, and waited- rather impatiently, Najia noticed- while the nurse checked Yaz’s vitals and asked her some questions about how she was feeling, cleaned up, and reattached the appropriate machinery. “No promises just yet, we’ll see how things develop overnight, but I’m guessing you may be able to go home tomorrow,” the nurse told Yaz, who was looking very confused as she watched her work.

The door closed behind the nurse as she left, and the Doctor took up her place by the bed again. “Are we in the hospital?” Yaz asked in a scratchy voice, as though she’d been left out of some huge secret.

Najia nodded. “Yes, we are. You’re safe now.” She paused at Yaz’s still thoroughly confused expression, wondering how much Yaz would remember of the incident later. “You had a bit of a bad date.”

Yaz frowned again, as though she didn’t quite believe what she was hearing. She dissolved into another fit of coughing, and the Doctor rummaged through the hospital room cupboards until she found some paper cups. She filled one with water and brought it over to Yaz, sitting on the edge of the bed, slipping an arm around Yaz’s waist and helping her sit up enough to drink it. “Thanks,” Yaz managed, sipping it slowly and carefully leaning into the Doctor, who was gently rubbing circles on her arm with the tips of her fingers. Najia watched as Yaz’s brow knitted in confusion as she sipped the water and tried to piece together what had happened. “You were there?” she asked the Doctor at last, hesitantly.

“Mmhmm. You texted me a bit of nonsense, and then called and hung up immediately after. I knew you were out with someone and thought I might make sure things were alright,” the Doctor told her, her tone ever so slightly too light for the situation, as if she was trying too hard to avoid sounding serious. 

“Ohhhh,” Yaz sighed. “Tom something.” She coughed again, finishing her water. “I was so glad to see you.”

The Doctor chuckled.

“How’d you know where we were?” Yaz asked.

“Traced the mobile signal,” the Doctor said airily. “Easy as pie. That timey-wimey detector’s good for a lot of things, you know,” she said, noticing both Yaz and Najia’s confused looks. “It goes ding when there’s stuff,” she tried to explain.

Yaz was looking up at her friend with a slightly bemused smile. “Right.”

Najia felt like this conversation was devolving into nonsense, and there were several things she wanted to know before they descended into complete lunacy. “Do you remember how you met this guy?” 

Yaz thought about it for a moment, rubbing her forehead like just the thought of it was painful. “Sonya. Someone she knows.”

Najia raised her eyebrows, trying to push down the righteous anger flaring up. “Sonya’s friend did this to you?”

Yaz rolled her eyes. “Well he’s a twat, you don’t have to worry about me seeing him again.”

Najia had several things to say about that, but her phone began ringing before she had the chance. “Oh, it’s your dad again,” she told Yaz. “I told him I’d call… I’d probably better take this.” She hit the answer button and stepped out into the hall, away from the gently beeping monitors.

Yaz couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but it was ever so slightly awkward, snuggling up against her friend in a hospital bed with her mum just outside. Like she was about to be caught making out or something. She gingerly shifted away to lean against the pillows instead. “I know I said it already, but thanks. Again.” She grimaced at the pain in her throat. “I really thought he had me for a minute.”

“I’ll always be there if you need me,” the Doctor told her gently. She gave a small smile, but the line between her brows was deeper than usual. She seemed to struggle to find the right words for a minute. “You scared me, too, actually,” she said at last. 

“Sorry,” Yaz told her, hoping she hadn’t caused her too much worry. It had been such a stupid idea to come back tonight, for this, when they could have been out traveling. They both would have had a much better night if she’d just ignored her stupid sister with her stupid suggestions.

“I thought you’d died,” the Doctor blurted into the silence after a minute. “You stopped breathing, Yaz, I thought you’d died right there in my arms and there was nothing I could do.” Her voice caught, as though she had more to say but suddenly thought better of it.

Yaz tried to shove down the tiny wiggle of fear that was materializing in her stomach. She'd wondered if she'd just been blowing it out of proportion, but it wasn’t her imagination, it had really almost been that bad. If the Doctor hadn’t been there… if Yaz hadn’t been able to send that message, if she’d sent it to _anyone_ else that didn’t have a literal time machine to reach her in time… Yaz felt sick again. “Sorry,” she said again, in a very small voice, tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

The Doctor noticed, immediately looking concerned and taking Yaz’s hand in both of hers. “Oh, Yaz, I-” she cut off abruptly as Najia opened the door. Yaz and the Doctor both jumped, unconsciously pulling away from each other as Najia stepped back into the room. 

“Well,” Najia said, pulling the door shut behind her. “Your father’s going to come by first thing tomorrow morning, after Sonya’s off to school, but he says he loves you and he’s glad you’re okay.” Najia turned to see the two women looking startled, like she had just interrupted a very intimate conversation. She briefly wondered if she should excuse herself again.

“Oh, no, he doesn’t have to do that,” Yaz said, glad for the distraction. “I mean they said I could go home tomorrow anyway.”

“Probably,” Najia corrected her. “You’ll stay right where you are until you’re well again.” She sat on the bed, taking note of the way the Doctor was avoiding looking at either of them. “Besides, you know your father, you know he’d be here right now with Sonya if he’d gotten my message earlier.”

“Ugh. This is so embarrassing,” Yaz mumbled.

Najia couldn’t quite understand, out of all the things Yaz could be thinking right now, what she could possibly find embarrassing. Najia desperately wished Yaz would just _talk_ to her, but it wasn’t so easy as to just screw up the courage to ask her point blank, Yaz would never give her a straight answer. Najia was trying to formulate a question in her mind to ask in a roundabout way when a very faint ding, like of a microwave, came from the corner of a room. All three ladies glanced at each other, confused.

“Ohh!” the Doctor exclaimed, leaping up and grabbing her coat off the chair in the corner, digging through the pockets until she pulled an impossibly large red and blue device from one of the pockets. She held it up proudly as it dinged again. “See?” she flashed a large, bright grin. “Stuff.”

Najia and Yaz glanced at each other, dumbfounded, as the Doctor rummaged through another pocket, pulled out Yaz’s phone, connected it via some kind of cable, and fiddled with the settings on the device until it made an unmistakable descending chime, like it was shutting down. She unplugged the phone and handed it back to Yaz. “You’ll want that back, then,” she said, shrugging into her coat. “I think you two probably need some family time. See you later, yeah?”

Najia wasn’t sure why she leaving in such a hurry, especially since she’d been so eager to stay earlier. She wondered if something had happened earlier while she was out of the room. “Doctor?” Najia asked before she could bolt out the door, feeling like she hadn’t even properly thanked her for everything she’d done tonight. “Come round for tea anytime, yeah?”

The Doctor grinned. “Definitely.” She gave a little salute and dashed out the door.

The door closed behind her with a thump, and the room took on a certain stillness, almost emptiness, without her. Najia watched Yaz for a moment, desperately wondering what to say.

Tears shone in the corner of Yaz’s eyes, and Najia brushed some hair out of Yaz’s face. “What is it, sweetheart? Do you want me to call the nurse?”

Yaz shook her head. “No,” she sniffed, staring down at the phone in her hands for a long moment. “I just feel so stupid.”

“Stupid?” Najia asked. “Sweetheart, you’re not stupid, why would you think that?”

Yaz shrugged. “It’s just… all that police training about self-defense and how to notice a shady situation and all that, and I still end up here. I’m supposed to be keeping this from happening to other people, not falling for it myself.” She sniffed again. “So stupid of me,” she whispered. 

“Yaz, you listen to me. This wasn’t your fault,” Najia took one of her hands and tried to catch her eye.

Yaz shrugged again, clearly not convinced. “I’m really tired,” she said, scooting down in the bed, pulling the blanket up to her chin and rolling onto her side to face away from Najia.

If Najia had been any less tired herself, she might have been frustrated enough to push the issue. But they were both physically and mentally exhausted, and no good was going to come of pestering Yaz for a heart to heart right now. She took her cue and dimmed the lights, settling into the one plush chair in the room and trying to make herself comfortable, listening to the occasional quiet sniff from the bed that told her Yaz was still crying.


	3. Grounded

Petrichor. The smell of dust after rain.

The earthy scent pushed the old memory into her mind as the Doctor ran her fingers lightly over the tips of the cool, green grass, listening to the thunder rumble gently and enjoying the way the breeze made her hair dance around her face, the way she could almost feel the misty rain in the distance graze her skin. She watched the thunderstorm roll lazily by from her vantage point on the grassy expanse, drenching the town below in a pale grey shower. 

It was no wonder the Doctor had developed such a soft spot for planet Earth. It was truly a sight to behold, the beauty of nature unfolding around every corner. The way a pink and gold sunset melted into the soft green hills, how the sunrise would push back the deep blue shadows and paint the world in yellow. Earth was wild and lush and vibrant. Welcoming.

Which was a good thing, if she was going to be grounded here indefinitely.

Their last trip had ended poorly, and she could only blame herself. It really should have occurred to her that it was wildly insensitive of her to take the fam to Mandreus Delta to investigate a shipwreck, just assuming that everyone was bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to take on a challenge as usual.

She’d badly misjudged just how much of a challenge the people of Mandreus Delta would be in the first place, but looking back, the Doctor couldn’t help but feel they would have all been rattled by the experience even if they’d gone into it ready. They’d been landed roughly ten minutes when they were captured, sedated, and tossed into a conscious stasis, with no ability to communicate and limited movement. And then there was the fact that of the four shipwrecked astronauts that had been captured before them, one had died in stasis and one was eaten alive, gruesomely, while they all had no choice but to watch.

He’d taken an insanely long time to die.

Ryan had been the one to figure out how to exploit a weakness and unlock the stasis chambers from inside, allowing them to escape and rescue the two remaining astronauts, dropping them back off at their home planet before Yaz had absolutely fallen apart. She’d sobbed into the Doctor’s shoulder for nearly an hour, and the Doctor had just held her while she shook, doing her best to comfort her. The Doctor was absolutely kicking herself for dragging Yaz into such a situation, and now she could only imagine how unsafe Yaz was feeling in her own skin. It was obvious that Yaz could probably use a break from travelling, at least for a little while, but Yaz was definitely not the type of person to admit aloud that she’d lost her nerve.

Graham and Ryan were sweet enough to make the excuse for her- Ryan wanted to take a break so he could study for and pass his NVQ before he forgot everything he’d already learned, Graham couldn’t miss some follow up doctor’s appointments he had scheduled. The Doctor had even made her excuse too, telling them all she’d stick around town for a bit, the TARDIS was in need of a recharge on a spacetime rift.

Never mind that the closest rift was in Cardiff, and the TARDIS was currently parked, fully charged, in Sheffield.

Team TARDIS had managed to keep themselves entertained in the downtime, though. The Doctor spent a fair amount of time helping Ryan study and letting him tinker with some spare parts she had lying around. He’d managed to build a passable energy converter, and the Doctor was proper impressed, even if the device wouldn’t help him on his exams at all. Yaz would frequently join them at Graham’s after she got off of work, and the four would end up playing Twister and board games and laughing themselves silly. Graham in particular had taken great pleasure in getting the Doctor to swear off Monopoly for the rest of her lives.

The Doctor had spent a considerable amount of time at Yaz’s, too, and the Doctor felt a certain responsibility to make sure Yaz was taken care of, to make sure she felt safe and had the chance to heal. In other situations where she’d been self-grounded, staying out of the time vortex had been a chore, but this time her concern for Yaz made it relatively easy to stay on Earth.

She was trying to be careful not to overdo it, though. The last time the Doctor had been grounded on Earth, he’d most definitely worn out his welcome at Amy and Rory’s, trying to piece together the puzzle of the cube invasion. It couldn’t have been easy on them, having their home invaded by a hyperactive alien with almost no need for sleep. They’d never have asked him to leave, of course, he was family after all. But this time, the Doctor was careful to give her friends their space on their own planet.

She hadn’t counted on how insanely lonely it would be, giving them that space. She’d already reorganized three workspaces and her entire bedroom within the TARDIS, straightened up the under-console work area, fixing three of the four steering elements in the process. She’d walked the city several times over, wandered into the library and read at least half the nonfiction section (who knew virology was so fascinating?), and engaged in a lively coffee shop debate with a bright young man whose name she knew but couldn’t place- until she got back to the TARDIS and looked him up and discovered that he became a popular astrophysicist in 2034, his interest sparked after a debate with a friendly stranger. But most of the time, she just wandered around, checking her fob watch every few minutes and trying to determine if her friends would be happy or annoyed to see her again so soon.

She checked the watch again with an irritated sigh. Yaz would be at work for the next five hours, Graham was enjoying a meetup with some old colleagues, Ryan had worked an overnight shift and would probably be asleep until evening. The Doctor lazily plucked a tall piece of grass and shredded it in long ribbons with her fingernail. She could always take a nap, she decided, it had been a few weeks since she’d slept, and here under the soft expanse of sky was as good a place as any. It would at least pass the time until later, and she could go check on Yaz. She stretched out in the grass, letting the breeze ruffle her hair, and dropped off to sleep. 

***

_The TARDIS knew she was panicking, of course she was. She had mere minutes- seconds, really, in the grand scheme of things, to get Yaz help, or she would be lost forever. Leaving her on the floor of the console room, the Doctor sprinted to the med bay. What did you do when a human wasn’t breathing? Well, that depended on why they weren’t breathing. She could use the universal system she had installed in the med bay, run the diagnostic and try to determine what class of drug had been used on Yaz and what it had done to her, but it would go through diagnostics for every race on every planet, which she didn’t have time for, and there was no way to isolate just a diagnostic for humans. That really seemed like a huge oversight on the manufacturer’s part, she decided, who created a universal diagnostic system and didn’t provide a way to isolate what you already knew?_

_She couldn’t give any of the antidotes she had on hand without knowing what Yaz was given. She couldn’t diagnose it with the tools she had available. Hands shaking, she threw aside a few more pieces of alien medical equipment, realizing that none of them would suit her purposes, none that she had time to work, anyway. Think, Doctor, think._

_She didn’t know what to do. Yaz was going to die. She might have a time machine, but she was out of time._

_Sprinting back out to the console room, she realized that the TARDIS had helpfully plugged in the coordinates for A&E for her, and was just waiting for her to push the lever. She only hesitated for a split second, surely a team of medical professionals who weren’t eyes deep in panic would be able to help Yaz, and anyway, it was the only plan she had. “Yes, right now,” the Doctor told her, slamming the lever into place and gathering Yaz into her arms again, stumbling towards the door as the TARDIS landed with a thump._

_They had mercifully landed just outside the doors for the emergency room, and the Doctor burst in. “She’s not breathing!” she yelled at the staff, who leapt into action at the sight of them. The Doctor couldn’t tell if Yaz still had a heartbeat by the time the staff pulled Yaz out of her arms and onto a stretcher, placing some godawful antiquated 21st century medical equipment on her, shoving breathing tubes down her throat and shining lights in her eyes. The Doctor followed them through the hallways as if tied by the hearts to her friend, answering their questions until they stopped her from following any further. She paced the waiting room, drawing irritated glances from the old man in the chair on the end holding his wrist. This had been a mistake, the TARDIS had far more advanced technology. If only the Doctor hadn’t chickened out, if she had just kept her composure long enough to think of a way to help her friend herself, Yaz would be in much better hands with her. She had to know if Yaz was alive…_

***

The Doctor woke up with a start as thunder cracked loudly nearby, her hearts racing with panic and her face wet. She was surprised to discover that it was from tears, not rain, and she sat up and willed her hearts to slow down. She could still feel the weight of Yaz’s unresponsive body in her arms, that awful stillness she couldn’t be shaken out of. It was all the Doctor could do not to sprint to Park Hill and wrap her arms around Yaz and just make sure she was safe and happy, wanting to see how Yaz would light up when she caught sight of her and her whole demeanor would brighten with that beautiful smile…

Oh.

Love had snuck up on her this time.

In hindsight, it was so obvious to her she had no idea how she could have missed it. Come to think of it, she had come so close to realizing it that night at the hospital, if only she and Yaz had been able to finish their conversation before Najia came back into the room. But rather than follow that train of thought to its natural conclusion, she’d stuffed her feelings back into the recesses of her mind and excused herself, to be thoroughly ignored until unconsciousness got her out of the way long enough to bring it back up.

She kept telling herself she wasn’t going to fall for people anymore. It never ended in anything other than her hearts breaking. And love and romance with humans was so _complicated_, knowing she could never be the kind of person they deserved, to grow old with. Besides, she now had to deal with the additional layer of her new gender, and all the complications humans in this time tended to attribute to gender-based nonsense. And then to say nothing of the fact that Yaz had never even once given the Doctor any indication she might feel similarly, that was a minefield all its own.

Then again… the Doctor had a terrible track record when it came to recognizing when people fancied her.

No. She wasn’t going to let herself give in to that deathtrap of hope. Logically, loving Yaz was a terrible idea. And there was nothing to be done about it anyway, she wasn’t going to ruin a perfectly good friendship with something as dumb as _feelings_. She was going to treat Yaz exactly the same as she had since they met. Unless Yaz made it perfectly plain that she felt differently- perhaps even if she did, given how bad of an idea that relationship would be- she was going to carry on as normal.

She checked her fob watch again, pleased to see that four and a half hours had gone by. Yaz would be home soon. And the Doctor _did_ have a nearly open invitation from Najia for tea. 

Tea at Yaz’s was sounding very much like something she needed right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those fics that I'm fairly sure has landed me on some kind of government watchlist, with all the google research I did on date rape drugs. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, I kind of want to write the Twister and Monopoly scene as like a one-shot.


	4. Stranger Than Fiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The adventure begins!

The Doctor’s boots stuck out from beneath the television cabinet, reminding Yaz a bit of the fate of the witch in the beginning of the Wizard of Oz. The Doctor, however, was under the cabinet voluntarily, having declared herself good at fixing things when Najia mentioned their television was on the fritz. She was chattering away happily as she worked, while Yaz and Najia held the television out of the way.

“Just needs a bit of rewiring, nothing fancy. Reminds me a bit of Twirly, except the telly’s not talking back! Shouldn’t take long. Keep holding it there!”

Yaz heard the sonic working, and Najia bent over as far as she could while still holding on to the television to see what was going on. “What is that noise?” Najia asked.

“Sonic screwdriver,” the Doctor’s voice came from beneath the cabinet. 

“What does that mean, sonic? How is a screwdriver sonic?” Najia looked to Yaz as though she might have an explanation. Unfortunately, Yaz had no good answer, and if she was being honest, she wouldn’t have classified the Doctor’s sonic as a screwdriver to begin with.

“Manipulates the temporo-spatial energy field to create torque! A bit old school, really, but effective.”

Yaz caught her mother’s eye and chuckled at her confused expression. She didn’t have the slightest idea what any of that explanation meant either, but Yaz found it as endearing as it was baffling. It was pretty common to have no idea what the Doctor was talking about, no matter how excitedly she explained herself.

“Hah!” the Doctor exulted and bounced out from under the cabinet, narrowly missing cracking her head on the edge. “That should do it! Go on, set the telly down, let’s try it out!” 

Yaz and Najia carefully put the television back where it sat on top of the cabinet, while the Doctor picked up the remote control and haphazardly pushed buttons until it turned on. The TV blared to life and the Doctor grinned. “Yes! Result!”

“Oh!” Najia exclaimed with an air of surprise, as though she couldn’t believe that anything fixed with something called a sonic screwdriver was actually going to work. “Well, color me impressed. Thanks, Doctor!” she smiled. “Do you want some more tea?” she asked, already taking the Doctor’s mug into the kitchen for a refill.

“Definitely!” The Doctor flopped down on the sofa.

Yaz took her own mug to the kitchen and added it to the line of mugs to refill, then snagged a package of biscuits out of the cupboard. She curled up on the end of the sofa and held the open end of the package towards the Doctor, who took three while chattering away happily. It was almost a tad strange, Yaz thought, listening to her mother and the Doctor chat like old friends. Najia had been considerably more welcoming towards the Doctor after she’d saved Yaz from the worst date ever. This turned out to be a good thing, as the Doctor had come by nearly every day for the last several weeks. Yaz supposed the Doctor was bored, more than anything, with their newfound downtime.

“So, what are you two getting up to tonight?” Najia brought the fresh mugs of tea for the Doctor and Yaz, then perched on the arm of the sofa next to Yaz with her own.

“Dunno,” the Doctor replied enthusiastically, looking to Yaz for ideas. “Graham mentioned there’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, we could go watch that! Gotta pick the right spot, though, you can’t see the stars very well from downtown. Unless you’re on a roof. Love a rooftop.”

“Oooh, you’re right.” Yaz pulled out her phone and brought up the weather app, waiting impatiently for it to load her location. “And we’ve got clear skies tonight. Bit cold though… Mum, don’t we have a thermos somewhere? We could bring hot chocolate.”

“Yeah, somewhere,” Najia said thoughtfully. “We’ll have to dig it out.”

“Hmm. Hot chocolate and meteors sounds like fun,” Yaz said, looking to the Doctor despite knowing she would be up for any plans at all.

“Love a good meteor shower!” the Doctor grinned.

Najia smiled at them. “Well, you two enjoy your evening. You’ve certainly been finding all the fun things to do around here lately.” She gave Yaz a playful motherly nudge with her elbow. “And just a few months ago you thought Sheffield was boring.”

“Well, sometimes it is!” Yaz protested. One thing Yaz was certain about, though, was that her days in Sheffield were infinitely better with the Doctor than without. Even a boring little town wasn’t so bad when you had someone like the Doctor to share it with. 

The truth was, there had been very little time to be bored the past few weeks, with the Doctor hanging out at Yaz’s so much. True to her word, she’d parked the Tardis and stayed in town, but she hadn’t stayed still for a single minute. The Doctor was just as good at finding regular human adventures as she was at finding them scattered across time and space. If she wasn’t at their flat or at Graham’s, she was begging Yaz to join her after shifts at work in trying a restaurant she’d found or finding something to do. Just last night, the two of them had gone to an Ed Sheeran concert (the real one, this time) so the Doctor could see what all the hype was about, and then stopped on the way home for ice creams. Najia had wanted to hear all about the concert and it was quite late when the Doctor finally left. Yaz was sure Najia was about to just make up the sofa and offer to move her in.

In fact, Yaz was a bit weirded out at how encouraging Najia was being lately about their local adventures. She desperately wanted to talk to her, and ask her a bunch of questions that had been burning in the back of her mind lately, but she didn’t want to ruin her mum’s sudden goodwill and have her mum go cold towards the Doctor, or worse, go cold towards Yaz herself. 

It’s just that, well, all of her Earthbound adventures with the Doctor had felt a bit like dates, and even more confusingly, Yaz secretly _loved_ that they felt like dates. Being out and about with the Doctor, just the two of them enjoying each other’s company and sharing experiences, watching the Doctor just unabashedly love things… Yaz hesitated to name exactly what she was feeling, but there was a lot of it.

Additionally, she wasn’t the only one who seemed to think they were acting like more than friends. A week or so ago, they’d been out at a restaurant, and the waitress had called them a “cute couple”, and neither of them had spoken up to correct her. Yaz had also noticed that the Doctor had tripped all over the English language as she tried to continue her story after the waitress left, but what Yaz couldn’t figure out was what it all was supposed to _mean_. 

Besides. Yaz was nineteen, and she’d never even once considered dating women. In her religion, it just… wasn’t an option. So what did it mean when you might potentially be sort of okay with the idea of dating one particular woman? Looking back, it wasn’t as though her feelings towards the Doctor had changed, really, so was it possible to have had a crush on someone as long as you’d known them and not have a single clue it was a crush? Plus, the Doctor wasn’t actually human anyway, so what if Yaz was way off base and just reading too much into things? Yaz couldn’t think of a single person she might feel comfortable talking to and trying to figure things out. 

Something small and blue on the ground by the tv cabinet caught Yaz’s eye and pulled her out of her thoughts, and she hopped up to get it. “Hey, Doctor, I think this is yours. Must have fallen out of your pocket,” she said, flipping the psychic paper open to be sure as she brought it over. Written on the paper, in large, messy handwriting were the words HELP US, PLEASE HELP US. “Who wrote this?” she asked, handing it over to the Doctor.

The Doctor sat bolt upright and read the message. “Oooh, no idea! That’s exciting. We should check it out!” She started to leap into action, but stopped herself and looked up at Yaz, reining in her enthusiasm. “I mean, if you want to. It can wait. If you wanted to wait, anyway.”

Yaz chewed on her lip, that familiar pinch of fear stabbing in her stomach. This message could take them anywhere, anything could happen. And yet... “Someone needs help, though. Is it fair to keep them waiting?”

The Doctor shrugged, failing miserably at acting casual. “The TARDIS will drop us whenever we ask it to. Doesn’t necessarily have to be now.”

Najia watched their interaction with a squint of confusion. “What sort of message is it?” Najia asked at last, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

The Doctor sprung to her feet to hand the psychic paper to Najia, only too happy to have a question to answer. “Slightly psychic paper! Shows whatever you want it to say. Someone out there is asking for help.”

“How? Who’s asking for help? That looks like handwriting, how did they write that note and get it in your pocket?”

“Dunno who sent it, could be anybody.”

Truthfully, Yaz was starting to miss travelling. It had been nice to be home for a while, to rest and know that she wasn’t deliberately landing on dangerous alien planets, but she’d also come to realize that she’d had a false sense of security about home, too. She was no safer here than she’d been anywhere else, just because she wasn’t stepping on sonic mines in Sheffield didn’t mean that terrible things didn’t happen here. She considered what could be waiting for them, if they went to help the person who sent the message, and a wave of fear overtook her. She remembered feeling the complete loss of control in stasis on that planet, the loss of control as she realized she’d been drugged and utterly helpless, and she almost wondered for a fraction of a second if those were her words on the psychic paper.

“Let’s do it,” Yaz heard herself saying, and the second she heard the words leave her mouth she knew she’d made the right call. Nobody else should ever have to feel helpless like that.

“Yasmin Khan! Do you want to investigate?” The Doctor grinned, eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “Someone needs help, we should go.”

“Brilliant!” The Doctor bounced around the room, picking up a few things she’d left lying around and stuffing them in her pockets. “You call Ryan and Graham, and I’ll make sure we’ve got everything we need.” 

Najia watched Yaz shoot off a text while the Doctor bustled around, now beyond confused. It was amazing how quickly they had gone from pleasant conversation to Najia being completely and utterly lost. And the Doctor had made it sound like she didn’t even know what was going on, either. This was exactly the sort of thing she couldn’t understand, the secrets were just too much. “Where are you going?” she asked, concerned.

“No idea!” the Doctor said happily.

Well that was just utter nonsense. “How can you not know where you’re going?”

To her surprise, the Doctor turned to her with a smile. “Remember how I was telling you that truth is stranger than fiction?”

Najia nodded.

“You wanna see?”

Najia glanced at her daughter, then back at the Doctor. This was the perfect opportunity to figure out just what was going on, a nearly open invitation into whatever they’d been keeping secret from her. “Well… alright.” 

“Brilliant!” the Doctor declared again, seemingly thrilled to bits that Najia was coming along. “Come on then! Let’s go!” She barely gave Yaz and Najia time to find their shoes, for Najia to grab her favorite brown jacket and stuff her phone and keys in her pocket before she was out the door. 

Najia followed them out of the flat and down the stairs to the parking area, and the familiar chime of Yaz’s phone sounded. “Ryan’s about to go in and take his test, and Graham is out. They said for us to go ahead and they’ll catch us next time,” she said.

“Tell Ryan we said good luck!” the Doctor replied cheerfully.

Najia followed them all the way through the parking area, confused that they weren’t stopping at any vehicles. “So are we taking your car?” she asked the Doctor.

“More of a ship, really,” the Doctor explained, approaching an old blue police box that Najia couldn’t remember ever having been around this particular corner. She unlocked the door and bounded inside.

Najia turned to Yaz, feeling her eyebrows raising so high they threatened to fly off her face. “Really?”

Yaz was grinning. “Go on, then. See for yourself.” She waved Najia forward and followed her inside.

This whole thing was completely insane, Najia thought as she stepped inside the box and stopped short just inside the doors. What had looked like a phone booth from the outside was actually massive, at least judging by the giant room right in front of her. The Doctor was busily flipping switches on some sort of center console, waving the blue wallet from her pocket in front of what had to have been a sensor and dancing around the pillars to adjust settings.

Najia could only stare for a minute before looking back at her daughter. “What is this place?”

Yaz couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “Welcome to the TARDIS, Mum.”

Najia stared at her daughter, who skipped up to the console to peer over the Doctor’s shoulder at something, then back at the massive room in front of them. “But…”

The Doctor looked up with a smile. “Go on, then, you can say it. Most everyone does.”

Najia took a few steps forward, surprised that she was able to. “It’s… bigger inside, isn’t it? How?”

The Doctor grinned at Yaz with a little scrunch of her nose. “I love that bit. Dimensional engineering!” she answered Najia, turning back to the console.

“So where are we going?” Yaz asked, staring at a massive screen that suddenly popped to life with a bunch of colorful circles, symbols that looked to Najia more like gears than anything.

The Doctor scrunched her face in confusion at the screen and stared at it for a minute. “Looks like… Andratx? But that can’t be right.”

“Why not?” Yaz asked.

“It’s just, the planet was quarantined after a massive incident that spooked the whole galaxy. It’s a bit like a time lock, in that nobody should be able to get in or out during the quarantine, but it’s supposed to be temporary, and requires some really specialized technology.” She flipped a few more switches and the text on the screen changed. “What do you mean, you don’t know what time?” she grumbled at the machine.

“So then how are we supposed to get in?” Yaz asked. “If it’s quarantined, does that mean messages shouldn’t be able to get out, either?”

“Good questions,” the Doctor told Yaz, messing with something on the console. “We might be going to a time before or after the quarantine, though, if I can just get the TARDIS to find the time coordinates…”

Najia was absolutely certain at some point in the last few minutes, she’d hit her head on something and she was going to wake up and find that this had all been a ridiculous dream. “Sorry, did you say another planet? What do all those circles mean?”

“That’s Gallifreyan, my home language,” the Doctor explained absently as she dialed in another setting and the TARDIS complained. 

Najia took a minute to absorb the new information. If she hadn’t gone completely insane, as she understood it, she was standing in what she had been told was a dimensionally engineered ship, preparing to leave for another planet, piloted by a woman whose home language was nothing Najia had ever seen on earth. Which, again assuming that she hadn’t gone completely insane, meant that the Doctor wasn’t from Earth, either. Although that did explain a lot.

She watched Yaz duck beneath the console and rummage through what she could only assume was a storage cabinet, every bit as comfortable in this remarkably alien place as she was in her own kitchen. Najia really had been out of the loop. More importantly, the Doctor had been absolutely right: she never would have believed Yaz telling her all of this, not in a million years. Not without seeing it herself. The only problem was, this was all raising far more questions than it was answering. “Er… don’t take this the wrong way, but… you’re not human? What are you?”

“Hmm?” The Doctor asked distractedly, looking up. “Oh! I’m a Time Lord. From Gallifrey. Hence the circles.” She waved her hand at the screen and went back to attempting to get the machine to read the time coordinates as she continued. “Sorry, probably should have brought that up sooner.”

Yaz popped back up with an odd, rectangular device in her hands and handed it to the Doctor. “Isn’t this the one you used last time?”

“But how?” Najia asked.

“What do you mean, how? How are you from Sheffield? That’s just where I’m from,” the Doctor said, taking the device from Yaz and plugging it in on an awkwardly placed plug on the console. “Aha, now we’ve got it! Good one, Yaz!” The circles on the screen changed to something she obviously recognized and the machine around them purred, while the Doctor high-fived Yaz. “Ready? You can still go back home now, if you want,” she told Najia, seeing her obviously overwhelmed expression. “Oh, and, in the interest of full disclosure, we’re not just going to another planet, we’re going to the 84th century. And you’d best hang on, this ship isn’t the smoothest ride.”

Once again, Najia looked at Yaz, silently begging her to confirm that all of this wasn’t just a wacky dream she was having. Yaz grabbed a handle on the console and gave Najia a questioning look: Are you coming or no? 

Najia tentatively grabbed a handle too, and watched the Doctor cautiously. “Stranger than fiction, indeed,” she muttered to herself.

The Doctor grinned and pulled the lever.


	5. Andratx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 11/23/19- If you're rereading this you may have noticed that I changed a bit of dialogue to be more in character. I don't usually change things after posting but it's been driving me nuts and I had to fix it!

The TARDIS door swung open, and the Doctor peered out of it to evaluate their surroundings before stepping out into the knee high dark green grass, Yaz and Najia right behind her. She crinkled her nose almost immediately. The air here was thick and heavy, a psychic weight about it that seemed to press inwards on her skull, and when she breathed in it had the musky, bitter taste of a sickbay with no antiseptic. “Ugh. Don’t like the taste of it here,” she complained.

“Then maybe don’t eat the dirt here?” Yaz teased her.

The Doctor made a face, looking out at the light beige sky, trying to decide if it tended more towards green or orange. “Absolutely not. It’ll take me a decade and thirteen packs of gum to get this taste out of my mouth. You don’t notice it?” she asked, incredulous.

Yaz shook her head. “No, and going by the look on your face, that’s probably a good thing.”

The Doctor grimaced again and turned to Najia, who was staring open-mouthed at the landscape in front of her. “Najia, welcome to your first alien planet!” the Doctor told her, turning to look at it herself. They had landed in the middle of what might have been a large park, with a line of trees behind them and a town sprawling out in front of them.

“But… we’ve.. this is… I’m not dreaming, am I?” Najia asked Yaz.

“Nope.” Yaz grinned and glanced at the Doctor, thoroughly enjoying being witness to her first adventure into time and space. 

The Doctor wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was squinting off into the distance, towards the town. And more interestingly, someone was running full pelt towards them.

“What’s that?” Yaz stepped forward to stand beside the Doctor, lifting her hand to her eyes to block the sunlight, squinting into the distance too.

“Dunno,” the Doctor replied, confused.

The person sprinted closer, running straight past the TARDIS and into the open field behind them, as though he was desperately trying to make it to the tree line. As he flew past, they could see the look of absolute panic on his face, as though he was running for his very life. Yaz looked towards the town and finally saw what he was running from.

A large beast, lionlike in stature but with reptilian scales and a snakelike face, rounded the corner of a building and bolted after the man. “Uh, Doctor?” Yaz asked nervously, taking a step backwards towards the TARDIS.

“What…?” the Doctor asked aloud, taking a few steps in the direction of the beast to see it better, as though it wasn’t approaching fast enough. In fact, it was approaching far faster than anything should be able to run, but it too ran straight past the TARDIS and into the field. Within seconds, it was on top of the man, and they heard him scream as it pulled his limbs from his body, showering the beast in a red spray of blood.

All three ladies jumped back in horror, and the man went silent after a few horrible moments. The beast roared victoriously and dissolved into a reddish blob that looked a bit like liquid suspended in the air. It ebbed and curled into little eddies before flowing through the air towards the town. 

“What in the name of sanity was that?” Najia asked, her voice pitched higher than usual.

“No idea,” the Doctor said, looking back in the direction of where the man had fallen. “Stay here for a minute.” 

Yaz watched the Doctor jog the several dozen yards to where the man had been, coat flapping behind her, and Yaz raised her hand to her eyes to block out the sun as she scanned the treeline, looking for any more beasts that might be hiding and trying to calm her racing heart. Was she really ready for this?

Well, Yaz figured she didn’t have much choice, by this point. The Doctor was walking back towards the TARDIS, eyes downcast. “He’s gone,” she said shortly when she got back within earshot, “but so is the creature. Wish I knew what it was.”

“Any guesses?” Yaz asked hesitantly.

The Doctor squinted off into the distance while she thought. “No. But I am very keen to find out.” She noticed Yaz’s worried expression and gave her a little smile. “You alright?” she asked.

Yaz gathered up every ounce of courage in her body and nodded. “Someone asked for help, and here we are to help.” She pulled the TARDIS door closed behind her and checked to make sure it was latched properly. “Do you think it was that man who sent the message?”

“I doubt it,” the Doctor replied, frowning at the psychic paper as she scanned it with the sonic and set it up to track the signal. “The message is still there, so it’s still being sent, if you will.” She tucked the sonic and the paper back into her pockets and turned to Yaz. “Where should we investigate first?”

“Wait, hold on. Investigate?” Najia asked incredulously. “You don’t mean we’re going to go find that thing?” She grabbed onto the Doctor’s sleeve, demanding her attention. “That was horrifying! Why is it on us to go help? You don’t have a clue what that thing was, you have no idea how dangerous it might be!”

“Muuuum,” Yaz groaned, rolling her eyes. “It's fine. We do this all the time.”

Yaz’s words seemed to light a fire under Najia, who rounded on the Doctor. “All the time? What does that mean, all the time? Have you been dragging my daughter to dangerous alien planets?”

The Doctor turned to face Najia squarely as her patience suddenly and inexplicably ran out. “No. She came voluntarily,” she told Najia coolly, crossing her arms.

“I don’t believe this! All the time, you said,” Najia turned to Yaz, “and you’ve been out _time travelling_ and facing down rogue monsters on alien planets! _This_ is what the two of you have been doing when you’re together and you won’t tell me what’s going on?” She glared at the Doctor.

“Yes,” the Doctor replied shortly.

Najia was caught between utter rage and speechlessness. She looked the Doctor squarely in the eye. “Is Yaz safe when she’s with you?”

The Doctor paused.

“Come off it, Mum!” Yaz interjected. “The worst thing that ever happened to me happened in Sheffield. If I’m not safe there, then why get upset about other planets?”

Najia looked like she was about to say something several times before she finally stood down.

“Right. Let’s get a shift on, then.” The Doctor turned abruptly and marched purposefully towards the town, hearts pounding in her ears, unsure if her friends were even following her at this point. She should have known better than to bring _parents_ along, she should have learned that lesson all the way back with Jackie Tyler.

Yaz frowned at Najia, annoyed and disappointed before breaking into a jog to keep up with the Doctor. “Wait up,” she called.

The Doctor slowed only marginally when Yaz caught up to her. “So I’m thinking,” she said, her voice just a little too sharp for the casual nature of the conversation, “the sender of the message should be relatively easy to find. The sonic’s programmed to the psychic paper, it’ll act a bit like echolocation. Should be able to use it to determine when we’re getting close.”

“Okay, good,” Yaz said, looking back to see where Najia was, just as she caught up to them too. They marched onward in silence for a minute, and the Doctor forced herself to calm down. What a stupid thing to argue about, and as soon as they got here too. The sudden influx of emotion vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving the Doctor marching along feeling incredibly stupid for picking a fight with Najia.

“I have another question,” Najia said after a minute, as though she was asking for permission to ask.

“What question?” the Doctor asked, softening.

“We’re on an alien planet, yeah? But that man that was running back there... he looked human.”

“Oh, yeah, he was,” the Doctor said, all tension dropping from her demeanor as she started to explain. “In about a thousand years from your time, humans figure out long range space travel and terraforming, and it literally opens up the universe to you. You spread across galaxies and set up colonies and touch nearly every habitable planet in your corner of the universe in no time at all. You’re an invasive species!” The Doctor teased them cheerfully. “It’s a good question though. Humans do end up mixing with some of the local species they meet on new planets, so not everyone who looks human is pure human.”

“Is that why you look human?” Najia asked.

“What? No!” The Doctor said, and Najia couldn’t tell if she was offended or not. “My people never took to the stars in the way humans do. Proud lot, had a bunch of time machines and thought that made them better than everyone else. Why expand and seek new adventures when you already think you’ve got the best?” She rolled her eyes. “Mind, a lot of societal species evolve to look like us. Surprisingly effective form, this, with opposable thumbs and separate legs and arms, and a brain about the right size for language skills, although some species evolved more efficient systems like respiratory bypass and camouflage. Bit like how all auto manufacturers have different features but the basic structure is the same.” 

Najia and Yaz were listening raptly with the same slightly astonished look on their face. “So how do you know the people here are human?” Najia asked.

“Cause I do,” the Doctor replied simply. “The human colony on Andratx is pretty common knowledge in these parts, and especially when they make the news with their quarantine.”

“News?” Yaz asked with a laugh. “What, is there like an outer-space news channel?” 

“Sort of, but who’s got time to sit around and watch telly in space?” the Doctor answered as they approached a small neighborhood at the edge of the town. “Alright, let’s see where our distress call came from.” She pulled out the sonic and the psychic paper, sorting through some settings until the sonic gave off a low-level buzzing sound and spun in a slow circle, listening for the change in tone. When the pitch increased slightly, she stopped. “Looks like this way, then.”

The three women followed the buzzing of the sonic through the neighborhood. The Doctor saw several species of carnivorous plants growing in beds along the sidewalk, and narrowly stopped Najia from stepping in a python vine. “That’d crush the life out of you before you knew what happened,” she cautioned her. 

“Some gardening society they must have here,” Najia muttered, carefully stepping away from the vines. “Do you think nobody’s out because they’re afraid of their flowerbeds?”

Now that Najia mentioned it, the Doctor noticed that the streets were completely empty. “Dunno,” she said, looking around, noticing the drawn blinds in every window. “I don’t like it, though.”

The first sign of life in the neighborhood came from a dilapidated old house, looking like it was on the brink of falling apart. They could hear the indistinct voices of two people arguing, then a loud bang and a red, gently eddying cloud seeped out of the door. 

Yaz and Najia exchanged a look, following the Doctor as she let the sonic guide her through the streets, occasionally stopping outside a door and listening. She paused for a particularly long time in front of a door through which they could hear the faint sound of a screaming infant. The Doctor frowned thoughtfully and rang the doorbell.

“The message came from here?” Yaz asked as they waited for someone to answer the door.

“No, but I hate to leave a child crying.” The Doctor carefully stepped around a flowerbed to try to peer in the front window. Unable to see anything, she came around to the doorstep and rang the doorbell again, growing impatient as the infant inside continued to scream. 

“Surely his parents are home,” Yaz said after several minutes, knowing exactly what the Doctor was planning to do. 

“I bet you’re right,” the Doctor responded, eyeing the lock and looking as though her plan remained unchanged.

“You’re going in anyway, aren’t you?”

“Yup.” The Doctor sonicked the lock with a flourish and the door popped open.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Najia asked, scandalized.

“Investigating.” The Doctor slowly pushed open the door a crack, peering in carefully.

“You’re literally here with a police officer, you can’t just break in!” Najia scolded.

“We’re not breaking in! And who better to go in with than the police?” the Doctor countered, pushing the door open all the way to reveal the interior of the house.

Najia fidgeted uncomfortably. “Sorry, when you said what you are, did you say Time Lord or crime lord?” she grumbled.

“Oh my _god_, Mum,” Yaz groaned.

“Oh that’s very witty, good one, Najia,” the Doctor grinned briefly before stepping inside the house, peering around before waving Yaz and Najia in. No signs of life, save for the crying infant upstairs. “Right. Yaz, see if you can find the parents and clear the rooms. I’ll see what’s making the baby so upset and deal with that. Najia, with me.” 

Yaz went into the sitting room, calling out for anyone who might respond, and the Doctor and Najia headed up the stairs. “I still feel like we shouldn’t be doing this,” Najia muttered.

“We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think something was wrong,” the Doctor justified. “We got a message asking for help, and now there’s a child left alone. That doesn’t seem suspicious to you?”

“It does, I’m just not usually the one breaking in to fix it,” Najia replied.

The Doctor gave her a little smile and found the crying baby’s bedroom, gently pushing open the door and stepping inside. She looked around the room, letting the baby cry for a moment while she peered behind curtains and under the crib. Satisfied that nothing was out of the ordinary, she approached the crib and ran a finger gently along the back of the baby’s pudgy hand, scrutinizing the crib too. “Well, hello,” she said softly. “No need to cry, we’re here to help.” The Doctor lifted the baby out of the crib, checking for anything that might be upsetting him. “Sorry, I don’t know what you want,” she told him, but the baby only cried harder. 

Najia approached the crib too. “If his parents come in while we’re here…”

The Doctor held the baby at arms length, looking over him and frowning. He was holding a stuffed elephant with a death grip, his dark green onesie seemed to be fitted properly, he didn’t appear to need a change. “How old d’you think he is?” she asked Najia thoughtfully. “2 years? 3? Definitely not old enough to be left alone like this.”

“Really?” Najia asked, laughing. “Three years?”

The Doctor raised her eyebrows, still wanting an answer.

Najia shook her head. “8 or 9 months, I’d guess. Didn’t you say you’d had kids?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Well not human ones!” the Doctor protested, settling the baby on her hip so she could pull the sonic out of her pocket and scan the crib again. “I really don’t see anything out of the ordinary here, except that he’s alone,” she told Najia, confused. “Unless he’s hungry.”

Yaz pushed open the door and came in, startling Najia and the Doctor. “I checked all the rooms, there’s nobody here,” she said, worried. “Who leaves a kid alone like that? Did you find out what he’s so upset about?” She eyed the screaming child in the Doctor’s arms.

“Well I’m working on it, a bit out of practice you know!” The Doctor squinted at the sonic. 

“Um, Doctor?” Yaz asked, patting the Doctor’s arm nervously and staring at something near the closet. “What do you think that is?”

The Doctor turned to see a thick black liquid oozing out from under the door of the closet, and congealing into an inky black, shapeless body. It rose like a shadow in front of them, silent and ominous. The Doctor pushed the screaming baby into Yaz’s arms and put herself between them and the shadow. “No idea,” she said, stretching an arm out as far as she dared to sonic it.

“What exactly is going on here?” Najia exclaimed. “Is this the planet of the monsters or something?”

The baby squirmed in Yaz’s arms, making her readjust her grip to avoid dropping him. “We’ve got to get him out of here, he’s terrified,” she told the Doctor as the baby sobbed and buried his face in her hair.

“I know! I’m working on it,” the Doctor said breathlessly. “Can you make your way to the door?” she asked as the monster rose to her height. A slit opened near the top of the monster and a mouth formed, showing rows of glistening, triangular teeth. “Okay, now that’s not a good development.”

With an almighty, angry screech, the baby suddenly threw his stuffed elephant at the monster, and to everyone’s surprise the monster vanished in a puff of white smoke as the toy passed through it. “What?” Yaz asked, confused, as the baby fell silent.

“Oh now that’s just not fair!” The Doctor exclaimed, striding forward and pulling open the closet door to reveal nothing but normal closet contents.

The baby was silent in Yaz’s arms, looking at the space where the monster had been with great interest. The Doctor turned to him. “How did you do that?”

The baby looked up at her with bright, still-damp eyes, then grinned widely and pointed to his elephant. “Da!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, I saw that bit, but how?” she asked again.

The baby squealed and reached for his elephant again. “Ba?” 

The Doctor scooped the toy off the ground, scanned it with the sonic, and handed it back to him. “It’s just a normal toy,” she told Yaz. “I don’t understand.” She fiddled with the sonic, looking through old diagnostic scans she’d collected, re-reading the scan from the monster. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, no. That can’t be right.”

“What is it?” Najia asked.

“Not good news. Sorry. Looks like Hvordin,” the Doctor answered, frowning. “It’s a parasitic psychic virus. Usually, when you’re infected, it plays your fears over and over in your head, strengthening and feeding the virus with adrenaline until you go mad. Bit like rabies, once you’ve noticed you’ve contracted it, it’s too late to treat.”

“That thing most definitely was not in my head,” Yaz gestured towards the closet with her free hand. “I know you all saw it too.”

“Didn’t say it was,” the Doctor squinted at her sonic again. “That’s just how the Hvordin virus operates. Could be something else using Hvordin as a cover.”

“Why would anything do that?” Najia asked, a hint of disgust in her voice.

“Dunno,” the Doctor answered. “Could be someone or something using the virus to induce fears and seize control of a population. Course, it could be unintentional. Nobody in their right mind would release Hvordin on a population.”

“Are we safe?” Najia asked, tense.

“Well,” the Doctor answered slowly, knowing she didn’t have nearly enough information to give the answer Najia was looking for. “Probably. I’ve got antiviral back in the TARDIS, best we all had a dose when we get back.”

“Didn’t you say once you’d noticed symptoms it was too late?” Yaz asked.

“I did. But I really don’t think this is an infection,” the Doctor answered. “Besides, Hvordin incubation period is a couple weeks. There’s no way we’d develop symptoms in the hour we’ve been here.”

The baby babbled loudly at the Doctor, and she smiled at him and tapped his nose with her finger, making him squeal happily. “Alright, Mickey, I haven’t forgotten about you. Missing your mum, eh?”

“Did you just name someone else’s baby?” Yaz asked dryly.

“Course not! He told me. Rather good at talking to babies, you know, although it’s been awhile,” she chattered, straightening up the crib and closing the closet door. “Let’s have another look around now that the monster’s gone. I don’t fancy taking a baby with us in the TARDIS. Not nearly fast enough at running.”

Yaz shook her head, smiling, and gently pried her hair out of Mickey’s hand as the Doctor left the nursery and checked the other rooms on the upper floor one more time.

The Doctor beckoned Yaz and Najia to follow as she led the way down the stairs, suddenly stopping short when she reached the bottom and turned into the sitting room, causing Yaz and Najia to nearly run into her. Standing straight in front of them was a tall woman with boisterously curly hair and an aggressive smile.

“Hello, sweetie,” she said.


	6. Apparitions

The Doctor stared at the woman as though she was seeing a ghost. 

Yaz’s first thought was that the woman might be the baby’s mother, but something about the way the Doctor froze like a rabbit before a fox at the sight of her made her think otherwise. “Doctor? Do you know her?” Yaz asked.

The Doctor appeared stunned into silence for the first time since Yaz had known her, unable to even come up with an answer to her question. The woman took her silence as the answer and laughed bitterly. “Already forgotten me, then?”

“What?” she whispered. “River, no, of course not… what would make you think I could ever forget you?” The Doctor raised a hand to River’s face. “I’m just… I didn’t think I was going to… well, spoilers, I suppose… I’m just really surprised to see you here, is all. Why are you even on this planet? And in this house?”

River gave a flirtatious smirk and crossed her arms. “I see. Straight down to business, and not even the kind I like. I never get a proper hello,” she said with a suggestive grin.

“Oh, don’t even start with the flirting, not right now.” The Doctor rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her lips. “Really, though, what are you doing here? This sort of mystery isn’t really your thing, is it? Unless someone opened a nearby sarcophagus or something… when are you? Have you got your diary? I don’t have mine, stopped carrying that a while ago- hold on,” she cut herself off as she patted her pockets, as though a thought had just occurred to her. “You can’t actually be River, you wouldn’t recognize me. I’m too old now.” 

“No, no, I get it. A girl goes and dies and you never think of her again.”

The Doctor narrowed her eyes and circled the other woman, sizing her up, and Yaz could swear the Doctor actually looked disappointed. “If you’re not River, then what are you? Are you the virus? Are you supposed to be a trap? Because if you are, you’ve only succeeded in making me angry.” 

River didn’t answer, just stood there smirking, which seemed to tell the Doctor everything she needed to know.

“How dare you take her form,” the Doctor snarled. “Whatever you are, how _dare_ you stand there and try to use her against me.” 

River sneered at her. “Now, now. That’s no way to talk to your wife.”

“Your _what_??” Yaz asked incredulously, her stomach twisting with an intense, bitter jealousy, surprising even Yaz herself. 

“It’s a long and complicated story,” the Doctor replied to Yaz through gritted teeth, still staring River down, looking as though she was about to rip the apparition apart.

“It’s really not that complicated,” River said, laughing. “You let me die.”

The Doctor faltered for a moment, a long pause full of self doubt and dissolving anger. “No, I… why would you think that?” she asked, sounding hurt, then shaking her head. “You went and did that on your own.”

“It was your stupid idea that killed me,” River countered. “You’re always going on about how time can be rewritten, and when you could have rewritten it to save my life you couldn’t be bothered, could you?” 

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, River. I’ve been over it millions of times in my head. You’d have figured me out and gone your own way. I did the only thing I knew to do.”

“That’s not good enough, and you know it.” River took a few vicious steps towards the Doctor, who reacted like she’d been slapped.

“I… River, I’m sorry…”

River smirked. “I would be so disappointed in you if I was real.”

Out of nowhere, the Doctor actually laughed. “No you wouldn’t! You went and made that decision on your own and begged me not to change anything. If you hadn’t had those stupid handcuffs-“ the Doctor stopped talking abruptly as River vanished in a puff of white smoke, much like the shadow monster in the closet. 

Nobody moved for a split second, until the Doctor dashed forward and scanned the vanishing smoke with her sonic. “Definitely Hvordin,” she decided after a moment, pointedly trying to direct the conversation away from what they’d all just seen. “But how? None of this makes any sense.”

“What do you mean?” Yaz asked, readjusting her grip on the squirming baby in her arms, not sure if she wanted the Doctor to elaborate on just what was going on with this River person or not. The Doctor’s _wife_, how could the Doctor possibly never mention having a wife? And the Doctor had obviously thought River was alive and well, but she’d also said she was dead… so was she still married or not? “Doctor?” Yaz prodded after a minute when the Doctor didn’t answer.

“Shush, I’m thinking,” the Doctor told her, waving a hand dismissively as she paced back and forth, lost in her own mind.

Yaz frowned, frustrated. After all this time and worry and confusion trying to pinpoint her feelings, how unfair was it that she finally figured it out right as she found out that the Doctor might be unavailable, might be _married_, of all things. 

“It’s definitely Hvordin,” the Doctor repeated, more to herself than anything. “But they don’t usually physically manifest your fears, they just drive you mad in your head. So where’s the physical manifestation coming from? And why?” she mused aloud, rambling to avoid having to answer questions. “Of course, being a virus, it could have mutated, there’s always the chance that it’s evolved enough to pop up a physical manifestation, try to scare you to your face with something pulled out of your own brain… oh, that’s vicious, though.”

“So they wanted to scare you, and thought the best way to do that would be to show you your wife?” Yaz asked. “That sounds healthy,” she muttered sarcastically under her breath.

The Doctor heard, glancing up at her with an unreadable expression. Mickey squirmed in Yaz’s arms, reaching for the Doctor and babbling loudly at her, leaning further and further towards her until his center of balance shifted enough to make Yaz hold him out to her. The Doctor finally conceded and scooped him out of Yaz’s arms. He snuggled in with a happy sigh and patted the Doctor’s face with a clumsy open hand.

“Seriously, though,” Yaz said, straightening her jacket now that her hands were free. “If the virus manifests fears, why her? Why is she supposed to scare you?”

“I didn’t come here for psychoanalysis,” the Doctor told her, a little too sharply.

“Oh come on! Share with the class, it’s relevant!” Yaz pushed. “It’ll help us understand what’s going on with the virus. Why’s she showing up here and accusing you of letting her die?”

The Doctor huffed, blowing a stray piece of hair out of her face, knowing Yaz was right. She spoke quickly, pacing the room, speaking towards the baby and carefully avoiding looking directly at anyone while she spoke. “The first time I met her, well… there was a bit of a situation, lots of lives at stake. I came up with a plan to try and save everyone, and she knocked me out and carried out the plan herself, and it killed her. Except we’re both time travelers, she’d already known me her whole life when I met her, so I kept running into her after that, and…” the Doctor paused, staring out the windows, lost in the memory. “I dunno, I knew what was going to happen to her. I had her whole life to think of a better way, I could have thought of another plan and told her how to save everyone without having to sacrifice herself. Except I’ve never been able to think of a plan where someone doesn’t have to put their own life at stake, and River was always far too stubborn for her own good, and she knew me far too well. As soon as she would have caught wind of a plan that put me in danger, she’d have ignored everything I asked her to do and done it herself. And I tried, I really did, to save her in the end, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t save her, not really,” she said softly, finally seeming to remember where she was, noticing her friends expressions. “Even if I came up with something now it’s too late.” 

There was a moment of somewhat awkward silence as Yaz and Najia absorbed what they’d just heard. It was the sort of thing, Yaz felt, that she might have at least mentioned in passing over the year or so they’d been travelling together. Then again, the Doctor had clearly loved her wife very much, perhaps she just hadn’t been ready to talk about it. The thought only served to make Yaz want to wrap her in a hug, to do what she could to ease the pain, but she had a sinking feeling it was never going to come to that. 

“But you have a time machine,” Najia prodded, noticing the dejected expression on Yaz’s face. “Isn’t she still out there? I mean, if she’s your wife, and you can travel anywhere you like, what’s stopping you from just going back and finding her?”

“Time doesn’t really work that way, Najia,” the Doctor told her with a frown. “I can’t always just manipulate it to do what I want, it can be very fragile.”

“So, if you got back in your ship and set it to go somewhere you knew she’d be…?” Najia pried again.

“The TARDIS most likely wouldn’t even take me there. The fact that River could travel in time was a bit of an anomaly to begin with, it makes the fabric of time unstable. Poke around at it too much in the same spot and you’ll blow a hole in the universe. Trying to go back and find her outside of where our paths naturally crossed could completely destroy our reality.” The Doctor sighed, finding that now that she was talking, it was actually a bit of a relief to finally be able to talk about it. “We never met in the right order, so we used to keep diaries to keep track of who had done what and avoid spoilers for things we hadn’t done yet. When she died, I kept her diary, essentially a log of every time she met me. I’ve gone over it a couple times since Darillium and it matches mine exactly. Our time’s up, and there’s nothing I can do to change that, I’ve got no choice but to move on. That’s why I was so surprised to see her here, or at least what I thought was her, I should have known it wasn’t real.” The Doctor shook her head. “But enough about me. This still doesn’t make sense. Hvordin don’t just leave you alone, they drive you mad. So if that’s what was behind River, why’s she gone now?”

“Makes sense to me,” Najia replied, letting her change the subject. “I mean, you explained it upstairs. They induce your fears, or at least your anxieties, or insecurities, or I dunno, things you’re feeling guilty about, it seems, in this case. When you overcome it, it goes away. Right?”

The Doctor stopped in her tracks. “Najia, that’s it! That’s _brilliant_!” she exclaimed. “Completely doesn’t fit with the way Hvordin usually work, but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense. A bit of psychic pushback and it goes away! That’s why the closet monster vanished when the baby threw his toy at it, that’s why River vanished when I talked to her about it to her face. Aaargh!” The Doctor threw her free hand in the air, as though that was the answer she should have come up with herself. “I bet that’s why we were sniping at each other when we first landed, too, because you’re scared for Yaz’s safety, and I-” She stopped short and practically interrupted herself with a new thought. “Oh, and I bet that’s what happened with the monster chasing the man when we first arrived. He didn’t push back against his fear, he ran from it. And it destroyed him.” She paused, suddenly frowning. “Oh.”

Najia’s eyes widened, a million things flashing through her mind, things she didn’t particularly want to face today, especially not in front of her daughter and a crazy alien she barely knew. “This is about to get messy, isn’t it?”

“Probably, yeah,” the Doctor agreed, clearly going over her own list in her mind.

Yaz glanced between the two of them, watching the guarded expressions on their faces, suddenly feeling like she didn’t know either of them at all. She pursed her lips and looked around the room, having a sudden thought. “Doctor, did you bring the neural balancers?”

The Doctor’s face lit up as she patted her pockets with her free hand, then fell. “No, although that’s brilliant.”

Yaz looked around the room, as though it might provide clues as to what to do next. “So, we still haven’t found who sent the message, have we?” she asked, trying to hide her rapidly deteriorating mood.

“No,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “We still need to figure that out. But I’d really rather find Mickey’s family first. Wherever they are.”

“You don’t suppose he’s alone because he’s afraid of being alone, do you?” Najia asked.

The Doctor looked up. “Maybe,” she said, taking up her pacing back and forth. “I really doubt that would be his fear though, he’s pretty happy right now. But who else-“ the Doctor stopped suddenly, her eyes on the baby. Watching as he kept staring at the empty corner of the living room, no matter which way she turned to walk. As a test, she changed directions and started walking towards the kitchen, noticing how he continued to stare at the corner.

And out of the corner of her eye, she saw it too. A door, where no door had previously been before. Keeping it in her consciousness, she turned to look at it fully, and there it was. Just like that one door, so long ago, in little Amelia Pond’s house.

“Yaz?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the door. “How many doors are there in this room?”

“What?” Yaz asked.

“How many doors?”

“Three?” Yaz answered, as though she was uncertain of her answer. “Just the front and back doors, and the one to the office.” She pointed to the other end of the room.

“What about that one?” The Doctor nodded towards the phantom door.

“What are you talking about?”

“Corner of your eye, Yaz.”

The Doctor watched as Yaz looked back and forth between her and Najia, then suddenly froze as she caught sight of the door. “When did that get there?” she asked, turning to face it fully and walking towards it.

“Yaz,” the Doctor bristled. “Do _not_ go through that door. You have no idea what could be through there.” Maybe it was the influence of the virus, maybe she was being realistic, but she desperately wanted Yaz to stay away from the door.

Yaz pressed her ear to the door, listening intently. She hesitated, then knocked.

The Doctor waited tensely, holding the baby a little too tightly, as nothing happened. Yaz pressed her ear to the door again before twisting the knob and pushing it open in front of her, prompting a noise of protest from the Doctor.

Yaz peered in without taking any steps forward. “It looks like this room. Like a copy, or a mirror.” She paused, turning to the Doctor, as Najia stepped up to the doorway and peered in curiously too. “Almost like the Solitract. Surely that can’t be here?”

The Doctor took a small step closer, curious but not wanting to get too close with the baby. “I doubt it, there’s no anti-zone,” she mused aloud. “Could be a parallel universe, or a trapdoor dimension- which are particularly nasty, by the way, if that’s what that is…”

“Hello?” Yaz called into the room with a sudden look of concern on her face. “Are you alright?” She cautiously stepped into the room, Najia right behind her, both of them either ignoring or oblivious to the Doctor’s protests.

The Doctor could hear the unmistakable sounds of someone crying in the other room, and she gripped the baby even tighter, making him squirm uncomfortably. “Sorry, Mickey,” she told him, re-settling him on her hip. “Looks like we’re going in.” She nervously approached the door and stepped through.

Yaz had been right. The mirror room was an identical copy of the sitting room she’d just left, right down to the half full glass of water on the end table and the discarded socks on the floor by the sofa. The primary difference was the dark-haired woman curled up in a ball on the sofa, sobbing her eyes out as Yaz knelt down by her, speaking in a soft and reassuring voice. The Doctor quickly glanced around, assessing the situation and trying to decide how much danger they were in.

“Can you tell me your name?” Yaz was asking gently.

The woman sniffled and glanced up at Yaz, and the Doctor realized she was younger than she initially thought, certainly no older than Yaz herself. “Sudi,” the woman answered, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Where did you come from?”

“Er,” Yaz fumbled with her answer for a second. “We were walking by and heard a baby crying…” she looked to the Doctor for help.

Sudi finally realized that more people had entered the room, her eyes landing on the baby. She brightened immediately. “Mickey!!” she exclaimed, leaping off the sofa and reaching for him.

She made it about halfway across the room when the entire world seemed to fold in on them, twisting and collapsing, and they were falling- until suddenly they weren’t. They were standing in the original sitting room, white smoke dissipating, the phantom door nowhere to be seen. Sudi was mere steps away from the Doctor, and she looked up at her with a shocked expression before reaching for the baby. He went with a happy “Mama!” exclamation. “What in the world just happened?” she asked, hugging her son to her chest.

Words seemed to escape everyone, until finally the Doctor spoke up softly. “Sudi… were you worried about being alone?”

Sudi wiped her eyes, looking almost ashamed. “Yeah, I… It was the weirdest thing. My boyfriend left for work this morning, and he seemed really… I don’t know.” Her voice wobbled. “I think he’s going to leave me, I don’t think he likes being a dad.” She started crying again in earnest, and Najia wrapped an arm around her comfortingly. “And sometimes I wonder if he’s coming home, and I was really worried about that this morning, and then I went up to check on the baby this morning and the baby was gone too, and nobody was answering their phones and I couldn’t find anyone outside. I didn’t know what had happened.” She gave Najia a grateful look as Najia pulled a pack of tissues from her pocket and offered her one. Sudi swiped at her eyes and blew her nose. “How did you guys even find Mickey? Where was he?”

“I think it’s more that we found you, honestly,” Najia told her, rubbing her back and giving her a moment to calm down. “He was upstairs in his crib, yelling up a storm. Sorry for breaking in, by the way,” she said, with pointed looks at Yaz and the Doctor, who at least had the good graces to look somewhat abashed.

Sudi shook her head. “I have no idea how you got in, but I’m actually really glad to see other people right now.”

The Doctor was staring out the back window again into the yard, frowning as she thought. “Sudi, something really strange is going on here. Maybe you can help us,” she suggested. “Do you know of any hospitals or disease control facilities nearby? Or something like… I dunno, a secret government facility or something?”

Sudi eyed them with suspicion. “You’re not one of those conspiracy theorists, are you?”

The Doctor perked up. “Dunno. What conspiracy do you mean?”

Sudi shrugged. “Any of them, you know how they like to publish their wacky theories in the tabloids. And it’s all rubbish. I work for the government, there’s no way we’re organized enough to put together any kind of mind control or dictatorship takeover or whatever it is they’ve cooked up this week.”

“What do you do for the government?” the Doctor pressed. “Because whether this is a conspiracy or not, there’s definitely something out of the ordinary going on. And I’m worried it might be a viral outbreak of sorts.”

Sudi chewed on her lip. “I’m just an entry-level office worker, really. Office of Science and Technology, but my boss is really close with the President. He’d probably know more than anyone else, but I’m not sure he’d be willing to talk about it.”

“We did get a message asking for help,” the Doctor told her. “It was a bit difficult to tell who sent it, but that’s why we’re here. To help,” she prodded gently. “Suppose it was him who sent the message?”

Sudi caved. “I can make some phone calls,” she said, handing Mickey to Najia and pulling out a phone.

Yaz pulled the Doctor aside while Sudi dialed. “Do you really think the virus is making everyone deal with their fears?” she asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. “Because people do crazy things when they’re scared.”

“Oh, I have plenty of firsthand experience with that,” the Doctor replied lowly. “But sometimes the only way out is through.”

Yaz nodded, but the Doctor noticed she was fidgeting with the zipper on her jacket. The Doctor took her hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Trust me?” she asked. Yaz looked up at her with the most trusting expression the Doctor had seen in years and nodded again, and the Doctor was forced to swallow a sudden lump in her throat.

Sudi pocketed her phone in frustration. “Nobody’s answering. What if we just went down to City Hall instead? I think the President is in the office today. Might be faster than wasting our time on the phone.”

“Ooooh!” The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “I get to say it, Yaz, like say it for real!” she patted Yaz’s arm excitedly, like a child finally seeing their favorite character at Disneyland.

“Say what?” Yaz asked, confused.

The Doctor straightened up and put on her most serious face before turning to Sudi. “Take me to your leader.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I feel SO BAD after reading all your comments and teasing River when it's not really her lol. If it's any consolation, I'm already working on my next fic and it's entirely 13/River so hopefully that will make up for some of it!!


	7. City Hall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A VERY special thanks to @NeverEverFaceTheDark for beta-ing this chapter!!!!

Four ladies and a baby emerged cautiously from the house, taking care not to step in the vegetation as they made their way down the front walkway. “It’s not that far, just a few blocks. We could walk it, if you feel comfortable with that,” Sudi said as she locked the door and pocketed her keys.

At the agreement of the rest of the party, they took off down the street, Sudi and Najia chatting and entertaining Mickey, while Yaz cautiously walked a bit closer to the Doctor. Maybe Yaz was being silly, she told herself, but something about their surroundings was bothering her, giving her that uneasy sort of feeling you get when you’re not quite safe but can’t put your finger on it. “We still haven’t found who sent the message, have we?” she asked, hoping to take her mind off the weirdness of their surroundings.

“No. But now’s the perfect time to check,” the Doctor told her, pulling the psychic paper and the sonic out of her pockets again and flipping the paper open. 

The message was still on the paper, and the Doctor scanned it with the sonic again, setting it up to track the signal. It gave off a familiar low buzz, and she waved it in various directions, listening for a clue as they slowly followed the other two down the street.

“Getting anything?” Yaz asked, peering over the Doctor’s shoulder at the sonic.

“Not really,” she answered, frowning at the device. She stopped suddenly and looked up, glancing around as if looking for something. “Do you hear that?” she asked, going stock still for just a moment as she listened harder.

“Hear what?” Yaz asked, confused, looking around too when the Doctor didn’t answer her.

The sonic began buzzing loudly, and the Doctor read it and frowned, then looked around again. “It says the signal originated around here, but it’s almost like it’s finding multiple sources.” She squinted at it again and pushed the button. “And now it doesn’t want to turn off.” She finally resorted to smacking it on her hand a time or two. “There’s nobody here except us, what do you mean this is where the message came from?” she grumbled as Sudi and Najia turned to see what all the commotion was about, finally realizing Yaz and the Doctor were no longer with them.

“What’s that?” Sudi asked curiously, watching her fumble with the sonic.

“Sonic device,” the Doctor mumbled as she smacked it against her hand again and finally pulled a piece of it out to shut it off. Yaz worried for a moment that perhaps she’d broken it, until the Doctor snapped the piece back into place and the end glowed it’s usual coral orange.

“Oh my god, what is that?” Najia asked suddenly, looking into the street ahead of them, putting a protective arm in front of Sudi to stop her from walking any further.

Yaz glanced ahead at exactly the right moment to see a man round the corner of the building ahead of them. The first thing she noticed about him was that he stumbled along like he was in a great amount of pain, his arms clutching his head. His blue coverall-style uniform was ripped and dirty, and he was bald with extremely pale skin. Yaz shrieked in surprise when he looked up at them, his eyes glowing red and actual _tentacles_ dangling from where his mouth was supposed to be. They could hear him snarling, and he lunged towards the group viciously before tripping and falling roughly to his knees, clutching his head again.

“Ohhh.” The Doctor sounded sad as she pocketed her sonic. “That poor Ood.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Sudi asked, clutching Mickey, her tone a mixture of fear and disgust.

“Doctor!” Yaz protested, grabbing at the back of her coat as the Doctor stepped out from the group and took a few cautious steps towards the Ood, causing him to look up and snarl again. “What if it’s dangerous?”

“I think he’s in pain,” the Doctor said gently, slowly kneeling awkwardly in front of him, trying to keep her balance to retreat if he lunged again. Very slowly, she reached a hand out towards him, much like she was reaching towards a wounded animal. “I can help, if you like,” she offered.

The Ood cowered on the ground, a low growl in its throat. 

“I’m a friend,” she tried again. “I hear your song. I can help.” She reached out her hand again, and when she met no resistance, placed it carefully on the side of the Ood’s face. After a moment, he relaxed, and an unmistakably gentle look crossed his odd features. When he looked up, Yaz noticed his eyes were now a natural catlike yellow.

“Friend,” he repeated in a calm yet mechanical voice, a small sphere attached to the front of his jacket lighting up as he spoke.

The Doctor grinned. “Better, eh?” She stood and held out her hand to help the Ood up. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The Ood took her hand and stood up awkwardly. “We don’t know, miss.” The sphere on his jacket lit up again, and Yaz wondered if the sphere was the source of his voice. 

The Doctor scrunched her nose. “Ooh, Donna was right, don’t much like being called miss,” she said under her breath, more to herself than anyone else. “Are there a lot of Ood here? What’s changed, what was hurting you?”

The Ood blinked a few times. “Help us. Please, help us,” it said, its tone pleasant and conversational.

A flash of confusion mixed with excitement crossed the Doctor’s face. “But that’s the message I got! Was that you, asking for help?” She dug in her pockets for the psychic paper, holding it out to show him when she found it.

“Please help us,” the Ood repeated.

“I’m trying to! What’s wrong, what’s changed? When did it start?”

The Ood blinked at her for a moment. “You must excuse me.” He turned, slowly and stiffly limping away and around another corner. The ladies watched him go, four identical stares of confusion following the Ood until he disappeared. Mickey pointed in the direction of the vanished Ood and babbled loudly at Sudi.

“Well, he wasn’t very helpful,” Sudi mumbled, adjusting her hold on the baby.

“So what was that?” Najia asked politely after a beat, surprised that she was even still able to be surprised after all she’d seen today so far.

The Doctor watched the spot where the Ood vanished while she answered. “The Ood,” she replied simply. “They’re mostly peaceful, but they’re also highly telepathic and I’ve seen some instances where something interferes with their telepathy. That’s usually when bad things happen.” She turned to her friends. “Which isn’t great news, seeing as we seem to be dealing with a psychic virus. When there’s a lot of distressed Ood, that’s never a good thing. They never do seem to catch a break.” She sighed, a twinge of sadness coloring her features again.

“What did you do to him?” Yaz asked.

“Telepathic shield.” The Doctor gave a small grin, held up her hand and wiggled her fingers, and Yaz suddenly found herself inexplicably fighting the heat rising to her cheeks. “Won’t last long, though, unfortunately, not on an Ood, their inter-species telepathy is too strong.”

“Telepathic?” Sudi asked suspiciously. “Aren’t you human?”

“In some cultures, it’s very rude to ask someone’s species,” the Doctor replied lightly, getting her bearings and starting to walk again. “Come on. Best we get things figured out before either the virus or the Ood get the better of us.”

“Wait, hold on, let’s not overlook the whole telepathic thing,” Najia protested, hanging back with Sudi. “You’ve been reading our minds this whole time?” 

Dear god, Yaz _desperately_ hoped that wasn’t true.

The Doctor stopped, exasperated. “No, it’s called touch telepathy, it only works with physical contact, and I don’t do it without permission. In fact, I don’t do it at all, really, as it opens a connection both ways and I certainly wouldn’t want any of you lot in my head. No offense. Now can we please get a shift on?” She turned and headed off in the direction she hoped was towards City Hall.

Najia followed with Yaz and Sudi trailing a few steps behind, Sudi seemingly willing to trust the Doctor as long as Najia was going along with it. Yaz, however, was now _intensely_ curious. She hadn’t realized the Doctor had any kind of telepathic capabilities, and she wanted to know how they worked. She was learning all sorts of things about her today, and she couldn’t help but wonder. What else didn’t she know about her friend? 

They walked in silence for a block or two until the Doctor suddenly turned and started talking again. “Sudi, you didn’t seem surprised to see that Ood back there. Do a lot of Ood live here?” she asked.

Sudi nodded. “Yeah, there’s quite a few. We’ve got a bunch on staff at City Hall, for maintenance and stuff. And a lot of them work in stores and restaurants, or as like personal assistants in people’s homes.” She suddenly frowned as an idea occurred to her. “Does that mean the Ood that are in people’s homes are going to go crazy too?”

The Doctor nodded. “Yes, they would be affected too.”

“But that’s like, half the city!” Sudi exclaimed. “My boyfriend wanted one, like to do the housecleaning and stuff and help out with Mickey. I asked him to wait before he bought one, though, I think they’re creepy.” She shuddered. 

Yaz agreed. “They are pretty weird, with those tentacles on their face instead of a mouth and all.”

“Oi, you two, you look pretty strange from their perspective. Big hole in your face instead of tentacles.” The Doctor raised her eyebrows at the younger girls.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure we do,” Yaz said with a smile. 

City Hall loomed before them just a few blocks later. Sudi darted up the deserted steps and shifted Mickey to her other arm to press the intercom speaker button.

“Who is it?” A man’s voice sounded from the speaker.

“Oh my god, that’s the President,” Sudi told them in a hushed, shocked voice. “What’s he doing answering the intercom today?” She pushed the button again, speaking clearly and respectfully. “Hi, President Shildon, it’s Sudi Singh in SciTech. I’ve got some friends with me, and, well, we were actually kind of hoping to talk to you.”

There was a pause. “Hey, Sudi. We can’t really take visitors today.”

She hit the button again. “I know you’re probably really busy, but they said they’re trying to help with a possible outbreak and I really don’t know anyone else that might have the information they need.”

They could hear a sigh on the other end of the intercom, and the president’s voice was a bit sharper than it had been previously. “More than half our scheduled staff didn’t show up for work today, no call, nothing. Even the Ood are skipping out. I really haven’t got time for visitors, or an outbreak, or anything not on my schedule today.”

Sudi’s face fell, and she took her finger off the intercom button and looked up to the Doctor. 

The Doctor gave an almost imperceptible sigh and pulled out the psychic paper. “It’s alright. We’re actually from the Intergalactic Investigations Committee.”

“Oh! You should have said!” Sudi turned back to the intercom to relay the information.

After a long pause, the president’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Alright. One visitor. I’ll buzz you in.”

“Sir, I’m so sorry… there’s three people here.”

“Well, bring one of them in, and we’ll buzz the others in when we verify credentials.”

Sudi lifted her finger off the button and grumbled a complaint, turning to the Doctor. “I guess that’s you then?” she asked, as the door clicked and jolted as it unlocked. She opened the door, then turned to Yaz and Najia. “We’ll buzz you in, give us just a minute,” she told them apologetically.

The Doctor held the door open, hesitating for just a moment, internally debating if they should all just go in anyway or not. Thinking better of it, she turned to Yaz and Najia. “Don’t wander off?” she asked, as though to make sure.

“Don’t forget about us?” Yaz countered.

The Doctor smiled. “Never.”

Yaz watched her follow the other woman through the doors, that tiny spark of irrational jealousy pinching in her stomach again. She wanted to be the one marching into the unknown with the Doctor, being there with her for the adventure. True, it made sense that this time it was Sudi, since she was their connection to the happenings on this planet, but Yaz longed to be the one by the Doctor’s side. 

Her thoughts drifted to River again, filling her with what she could almost describe as nervousness. She supposed she ought to be glad that she now had undeniable proof that the Doctor liked women, but instead she just found herself growing more and more irritated. Knowing that the Doctor had been married to someone like River, with her perfect, curly hair, her light complexion, that hint of seductiveness in her voice… how could Yaz ever compete with that? She was like, the polar opposite of River, so if the Doctor’s type was someone like her, Yaz had next to no chance whatsoever. 

Najia was looking at Yaz expectantly, and Yaz realized Najia had been talking to her while she was away with the fairies. “What?”

“It’s just, we’re on an alien planet. Can you believe it?”

“Mm-hmm,” Yaz said, trying her best to give her a smile, and sort of failing.

“Something wrong, sweetheart?”

“No,” Yaz lied.

“Are you sure?”

Yaz groaned. “Of course I’m sure. I don’t have to go over every thought that passes through my head, you know,” she said irritably, realizing on some level that her annoyance at her mother was unjustified.

“You could still talk to me on occasion, you know.” Najia crossed her arms pointedly and waited for Yaz to speak. 

“I talk to you! It’s not like we don’t live in the same house, Mum. You know everything I do anyway,” Yaz grumbled, knowing as she spoke that even if it had been true months ago, it was blatantly untrue now. 

“Well obviously not!” Najia gestured at the alien planet around them. “I didn’t know anything about you travelling around with the Doctor, I didn’t even know you’d met someone until she turned up at the hotel with your other friends. You disappear for days without so much as a goodbye, you’re spending all this time with people you won’t tell me anything about. It scares me, sweetheart!”

“So what was I supposed to say, Mum?” Yaz exclaimed, giving over to the sudden burst of emotion. “Just so you know, I’ve met this incredible person and sometimes we get in her time machine and go gallivanting around the universe? Like you’d have ever believed me!”

“Okay, honestly, you’d probably have had some trouble convincing me about the time machine part. But Yaz, I’m your mum, and I care about you, and I just want the best for you. What if you got hurt while you were out travelling? Would I have to hear it secondhand from the Doctor, like I did when you were in the hospital? I didn’t even know you were on a date until she called me panicking.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore! I’m done dating! I don’t even think I actually like guys.”

Najia frowned. “I know.”

Yaz froze and looked up at her mum. “What do you mean, you know? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sweetheart, you’ve never been all that interested in guys. You’ve always focused on your schoolwork, and now your job. It wasn’t a secret that your attention was elsewhere.”

Yaz couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and had to turn away for a minute to wipe the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. “Well, congratulations on your defective daughter then.”

Najia frowned again. “Defective? You don’t really think that, do you?”

Yaz shrugged moodily, feeling very defective at the moment. 

“Sweetheart, you’re not defective. There’s nothing wrong with not being interested in guys. Some people find that they’re perfectly happy without needing a relationship, and some people fall in love with the last person they’d expect. And for the record, I only want you to be happy. I don’t care who you love, so long as they love you back.” Najia wrapped her daughter in a hug and just held her for a moment. “Maybe bring them round for dinner every now and then.”

Yaz found herself laughing through her tears as she hugged her mum back, wondering if Najia had any idea that she’d already been feeding said person dinner nearly every night for weeks. Relief washed over her, making her feel about a thousand pounds lighter. She finally didn’t feel like she was on thin ice, until she suddenly had another thought. “You know Dad’s probably not going to be happy about that.”

“Well, you leave him to me.” Najia gave Yaz a little squeeze. “He’s just going to have to build himself a bridge and get right over it. You just worry about what makes you happy.”

Yaz laughed again, almost giddy with happiness as she hugged her back. “Thanks, Mum. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you earlier, I just… kind of had no idea how to start. Especially about the whole time traveling thing. And I really didn’t mean to make you worry.”

Najia squeezed her again as the intercom buzzed, and Sudi’s voice came through. “Alright, the door will unlock in a minute. This place is kind of built like a maze, so when you get in, go through the last door on your right, down the hall, up the stairs, and then it’s the big office on the right.”

The door in front of them clicked and jostled, indicating that it was open, and Yaz and Najia stepped into the large entryway.

City Hall was built like a drunken architect was having a joke, and Yaz had to repeat Sudi’s directions to herself as they walked so they didn’t lose their bearings. “84th century architecture doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” Najia wondered aloud as they walked.

“Right?” Yaz agreed. “I’d love to know what happened to make people create such a stupid layout. Something like this has to have a historical explanation.”

They made it to the top of the staircase and found the appropriate office, and pushed open the door to join their friends. “…Just don’t see why we’re being investigated,” the president was saying. “There’s no funny business going on around here.” He was a tall, dark skinned man whose features strongly reminded Yaz of a younger version of her grandpa on her dad’s side. He stood with his arms crossed beside a large mahogany desk bearing his name, Yuri Shildon, in large gold letters. Sudi sat in a large, plush leather chair behind the desk, looking very small in the context of the room while she bounced Mickey on her knee, while a gentle-looking Ood laid out a tea tray on the desk and stood dutifully in a corner, folding his hands in front of him. 

“Didn’t say there was,” the Doctor replied, not even looking at Yuri as she spoke. Instead, she was walking slowly next to the bookshelf with her head tilted to the side, reading the spines of the books. “After all, we’re not exactly conducting an official investigation against the government. We just need to know some information that could be classified.” 

The president laughed. “Well, if it’s classified, you know I’m probably not going to be able to tell you.”

“Well, I recommend you make that decision when you have all the facts,” the Doctor told him, a hint of annoyance in her voice. She turned away from the bookshelf and finally noticed Yaz and Najia in the room. She brightened at their appearance and clapped her hands. “Well, then, since we’re all here, we’ll fill you in.” She looked back over to the President. “Earlier today, we received a message asking for help, and to the best of my knowledge, that message came from the Ood who live here on Andratx. We’ve conducted an investigation throughout the housing district, and we’ve found multiple traces of the Hvordin virus.”

The president’s eyes widened as he received the bad news, and he stood up straighter. “You haven’t.” 

The Doctor nodded solemnly. “Unfortunately, we have. The thing is, based on the current results of the investigation, the virus isn’t behaving like it usually does. It’s prompting physical manifestations of fears, and if it’s not addressed, those physical manifestations kill the victims.” She watched him carefully for clues in his reaction. 

“This can’t be happening. Not here. You’ve made a mistake,” the president accused.

“Think about it, Yuri,” the Doctor countered. “Why do you think so many people decided not to come in to work today? Have you called any of them to see why they stayed home?”

“No,” he admitted grudgingly. “I haven’t got time for that. If they decide not to come in, that’s their rotten performance, not mine.”

The Doctor narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Half your staff disappears and you don’t even bother to find out why. Do you have any idea what’s going on out there?” She gestured out the large glass windows that overlooked the town. “Well, of course you haven’t, if you haven’t been bothered to check. As I said, physical manifestations of people’s fears are killing them. We saw it the moment we got here, watched a man get ripped apart right before our eyes. And nobody’s safe, even little Mickey over there nearly got killed by a shadow monster,” she argued, gesturing towards the baby.

“Wait, what?” Sudi asked in alarm.

“Remember when we said we heard him crying?” the Doctor asked. “We came in because it didn’t seem like anyone was home, and sure enough there was a monster in the closet. Fortunately for all of us, Mickey had the good sense to confront his fear, which kept it at bay.”

Yuri looked at Sudi with an incredulous expression. “And you just let them into your house, to look in your child’s closet?”

“I didn’t _let_ anything happen,” she shot back. “I was going about my morning as usual and somehow ended up stuck in some kind of nightmare where I was completely alone, and I had no way out. If they hadn’t found me, I might be dead too,” she said, paling as she suddenly realized how dire the situation had really been. She held Mickey a little closer. “What if that’s what’s happened to everyone else, too? What if that’s why they didn’t come in?” she asked, her argumentative tone quickly dissolving into worry.

“That’s what I’m trying to say,” the Doctor said, turning to the president. “Your citizens are dying, Yuri. You can’t ignore this.”

Yuri looked out the large glass window that overlooked the city, then back at the Doctor, then at the other ladies in the room. “This has to be an attempt to undermine me. There’s no other explanation,” he said, visibly growing more agitated.

The Doctor scrunched her face in confusion. “What?”

“Someone’s trying to discredit me. They have to be. Someone’s trying to make me look bad, trying to convince the public I’m not fit for office.” Yaz saw a wild gleam in his eye, and his gestures became more animated as he spoke. “I bet it was that son of a bitch Cam Greene. He’s trying to get me to lose the election! I bet he released the virus on everyone and the next thing I know, the media will be blaming my global healthcare policy!” 

“Sir,” Sudi spoke up in a small voice, hesitating as he turned his wild look to her. “But… you won the election six months ago. Why would Cam be doing this now?”

The president paused, eyes wide. “So he’s trying to ruin my chances for the next election!”

“The one that’s three and a half years away?” Sudi asked.

Yuri threw his hands in the air. “So, maybe it was one of the cabinet, then! Maybe they’re trying to overthrow the results of the election, or stage a coup. It reeks of conspiracy. Someone’s trying to destroy my credibility, make me look incompetent!”

“Oh, why is it always a conspiracy?” Najia huffed and rolled her eyes, and Yaz was strongly reminded of her parents arguing over the trash.

He looked over at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Najia leaned back against the doorframe, crossing her arms. “You and my husband are cut from the same cloth. Not everything is a conspiracy, you know. Sometimes crazy things happen for perfectly explainable reasons.”

“What else would it be?” 

Najia frowned. “I’m not sure, exactly, but let’s think about this. You’re a leader, I’m sure you know your staff well, I’m sure you trust them. A good leader does, anyway. Is there anyone on your team that could be so underhanded they’d risk killing off half the town just to discredit you? Surely there’s got to be an easier way if that’s what they were trying to do.”

Yuri paused, looking thoughtful.

“Not only that,” Najia continued as he calmed down, “but conspiracies, especially something this big, would have to be planned. Trust me, I manage 45 people and there’s no way an entire office could keep that quiet. People talk. What rumors have been going around these days?”

Sudi adjusted her grip on Mickey as he squirmed and spoke up. “She’s right, you know. My desk is next to Marina’s and she’s the biggest gossip I’ve ever met. And all she’s had to talk about in the past few months is the new season of the Voice that’s coming up. If there was a conspiracy going on, I wouldn’t have had to hear about whether or not Sontarans are allowed to compete for the past three months.”

“Dear god, is that still on?” Najia asked incredulously.

Sudi rolled her eyes. “They’re bringing it back again for the 6500th anniversary.”

The president nodded slowly, taking Najia’s thoughts into consideration. “So if it’s not a conspiracy, if it wasn’t deliberate, then it would have to be an accident.” He moved the tea tray aside and sat on the edge of his desk, looking thoroughly defeated. He rubbed his face wearily, and the Ood in the corner stepped forward to offer him a crisply folded handkerchief, which he waved off. “I’m sorry. This is all way more than I expected to have to handle in my first six months in office. I knew it would be challenging, especially after the last administration, but this…” 

“Hvordin exaggerates your fears,” the Doctor told him, softening a bit. “Makes everything seem worse than it really is, drives you mad. If you’ve been worried about having the support of your constituents, it’s going to exaggerate that until it consumes you. You have to fight it to survive.”

“You know the last president was assassinated, right?” Yuri told her dryly, looking up. “He made one mistake and the population turned on him.”

“What happened?” Yaz asked, curious.

“He tried to pass a bill that would benefit both political parties.”

Yaz laughed. “That’s it?”

Yuri stared at her, dead serious. “That’s all it takes. We’ve got a two-party political system, the media gets better ratings when they stick to one extreme or the other, so nobody ever gets to hear both sides of an issue. The people don’t want middle ground, they want to win, and sometimes I think even more than that, they want to watch the other party burn.” He shifted his weight and sighed. “I won the election by such a narrow margin, Cam asked for seven vote recounts before he backed down. Seven! All Cam has to do is stir up his base a little bit more, try to overturn the election, and it could be me with a knife in my back next. Of course I’m worried. How am I supposed to fight that?”

There was silence in the room for a moment, until the Doctor spoke up after a brief hesitation. “You do know that the only way a society can stand is to work with each other, don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I know that,” he replied with a bite to his tone. “That’s the entire reason I got into politics in the first place, I thought I had an idea of how to improve things. But I had to appear ruthless on the campaign trail, so my base would buy it. Now that I’m actually here, though, I think it’s pretty clear that my previous ideas won’t work, and I don’t actually know how to fix things without getting myself killed.” He hopped off his desk with a bitter expression and stared out the window for a second. “Unless… there’s always the Amplifier. Crank it up, get everyone in a compliant mindset…”

“Compliant mindset?” the Doctor narrowed her eyes. “So rather than work things out like politicians are supposed to, you’re going to, what, hypnotize an entire population? What is this Amplifier, then?”

Yuri didn’t answer, staring out the window in thought.

Sudi spoke up. “The Amplifier’s something my division is in charge of. It’s like a psychic generator of sorts. Projects good feelings and happy thoughts onto a population.” She glanced at Yuri. “Or other things, depending on who’s controlling it.”

“What do you need a psychic generator here for?” the Doctor asked. “Those were supposed to be outlawed eons ago.”

“It was installed by the Intergalactic Health Organization when the first colonists arrived on the planet a few hundred years ago,” the president explained. “Special clearance was granted for Andratx. This whole planet was an extremely long project in terraforming. When it was discovered, everything about it was hostile, from the plants and insects, the atmosphere content had to be completely reworked, even the shadows were hostile,” he told them. 

The Doctor’s head snapped up. “The shadows?” she asked.

“Mmhmm. One of the crazier things they had to get rid of here. So they adjusted the atmosphere, lowered the temperature, did a ten-year artificial sunlight project to get rid of whatever was in the shadows, created parks for the local vegetation and wildlife and introduced our own. It still wasn’t enough, the first generation here dealt with a lot of mental health issues, coupled with the lack of sunlight getting through the new atmosphere, so they got clearance for the Amplifier. Humans have been relatively happy here since.”

“That’s an awful lot of work for a planet that doesn’t seem to want humans here,” Najia observed.

“Yes, well, Andratx has an extremely abundant source of iridium,” Yuri said. “They weren’t just going to let that go to waste.”

“Always comes back to money, doesn’t it?” the Doctor mused. “It’s all one giant resource to be used, even if it means completely reformatting an entire uninhabitable planet.” She turned to Sudi. “Tell me more about this Amplifier. How does it work?”

“I’m not really up to speed on the technical side of it,” Sudi said, “although I know it’s some kind of biotechnology. And it’s really old, I mean it’s been on for several hundred years now.”

“What kind of biotech?” the Doctor asked quickly. “Venusian? Stenza? Pippin?”

Sudi paused, thinking. “I’m not really sure. We could talk to maintenance, though, they’d definitely know.”

“Maintenance didn’t come in today,” Yuri interjected.

“That’s alright,” the Doctor said quickly. “I’ve got a theory. Depending on how it works and what kind of biotech it is, it could, theoretically, be infected by something biologically. Initially I thought we were dealing with a mutation of the Hvordin virus, but it occurred to me on the way over here that once something mutates beyond a certain point it stops being recognizable as that thing. And my readings were very definitely Hvordin. So, what if it was the Amplifier that got infected, not the population? What if it’s not exactly an outbreak, but a projection of the virus?”

“It shouldn’t be strong enough to project a whole virus, though,” Sudi said.

“It would have to be pretty strong to overcome the psychic impact of a hostile planet. Which brings me to another question,” the Doctor eyed the Ood in the corner and turned to President Shildon. “When did you bring the Ood?”

“Oh, they’ve been here since the start. With the first colonists. There were some issues, at first, some of them went a bit mad. They thought it was the long-range space travel that did them in.”

The Doctor snorted and threw her hands in the air. “Humans! The Ood are from a galactic system much further away than you had to travel to get here. It didn’t occur to you that bringing a highly telepathic race onto a hostile planet- as slaves, I might add- was a colossally terrible idea?”

Yuri rolled his eyes and leaned up against the corner of his desk. “The Ood aren’t telepathic. And they’re not slaves.”

“You purchase them from other humans to serve you, in my book that’s a slave. And you’d have to be willfully overlooking the physiology of the Ood to not know they’re telepathic.” She crossed her arms.

“And how would you know that?” Yuri asked condescendingly.

“Because I’ve met them, several times over now. Their language is more like song than words, and they have to be processed with a translator before they can live amongst humans.” She paced back and forth, growing more and more annoyed as she spoke. “Do you know how they process an Ood? They’re born with a secondary hind-brain in their hands, and they’re essentially lobotomized. They cut off the brain and replace it with a translator ball, and then ship them out to serve humanity.” She gave an angry, pointed look to Yuri. “Every time I meet the Ood, they’re being taken advantage of! I thought I’d put a stop to it, long time ago, but something always falls through the cracks.” She frowned. “And here they are, enslaved on a hostile planet, living in excruciating mental pain. No wonder they went mad!”

Silence fell over the room as the implications of what the Doctor was saying sunk in. 

“They do all that to them before they put them up for sale?” Sudi asked, horrified. “That’s something they don’t mention on the adverts.”

The Doctor glanced at her. “It didn’t occur to you that buying them was a bit questionable in the first place?” she asked, not unkindly.

Sudi shrugged uncomfortably. “I dunno, I always thought it was more like, y’know, buying a dog or something. Like taking responsibility to care for it, not… buying a slave,” she finished quietly.

“Why don’t the Ood fight back?” Yaz asked.

“It’s not on the victim to save themselves, you know,” the Doctor said. “The Ood are born with their second brain in their hands, they have no choice but to trust everyone they meet. And you humans see everything and everyone as a resource to be used to your advantage.” She threw another glance in Yuri’s direction.

Yaz hadn’t expected the new information about the Ood to hit her so hard, but she suddenly felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes again. She glanced to the Ood in the corner, wondering what it thought of the conversation they were having. He was massaging his temple with a hand, eyes closed, and Yaz suddenly had a thought. “Where’s the Amplifier controlled from?” she asked.

“There’s a control panel on the side of it,” Sudi answered.

“Anywhere else? Anywhere remotely?” Yaz asked.

“Not that I know of, just the panel on the side.”

“Is there CCTV on it?”

“What?”

“CCTV… Like security cameras that record video footage?”

“Oh! Yeah. They’re all over City Hall.”

“Can we see?” Yaz asked, excitement mounting.

The Doctor watched Yaz with great interest as Yuri took his chair back from Sudi, pulled up his computer, logged in, and located the footage. He fumbled with the controls for a moment. “Sorry, still learning how to use this particular application.”

“It looks just like the one I use at work. May I?” Yaz asked, gesturing to the computer control pad.

Yuri stepped back. “Be my guest.”

Yaz rolled the plush chair aside and stood in front of the computer, locating the camera pointed at the Amplifier and scrolling quickly through footage from the past several weeks, pausing at any sign the camera had detected movement.

The Doctor came to stand behind Yaz, laying a hand on her shoulder as she leaned in to watch her work. “What is it we’re looking for?” she asked, scrunching her face at the screen.

“So the Ood are super telepathic, right?” Yaz asked, flipping through some of the footage and deliberately choosing not to focus on how very close the Doctor was. “And we have an amplifier, and a psychic virus. I would bet anyone here right now a very large amount of money that if the virus infected the amplifier, the Ood were upset by it and tampered with it.”

“Yaz, that’s brilliant,” the Doctor breathed, watching the footage. “And by tampering with it, turned up the amplification, hence the sudden symptoms and physical manifestations.”

The president watched them work with an air of disdain. “The Ood shouldn’t know how to work the Amplifier.”

“Well, they wouldn’t, would they? They’ve only got half a brain.” Yaz shot him a quick glare.

“No, Yaz, that’s not…” the Doctor shook her head. “They’ve got a whole brain. But you were right about the Amplifier, look.” 

She pointed to the CCTV footage of an obviously distressed Ood, frantically pushing buttons and twisting knobs on the Amplifier’s control panel, before clutching its head and stumbling out of the room.

“That Ood had no authorization to do that,” Yuri said, watching the footage with a furrowed brow.

“I doubt he much cared about authorization, he just wanted the pain to stop,” the Doctor replied. 

Once more, Yaz glanced up at the Ood in the corner, noticing that he now was holding his head in both of his hands like the Ood in the street had been. “Um, Doctor?” she asked in as calm a voice as she could manage, slowly backing out from behind the desk. “We might have a more urgent Ood problem.”

The Doctor looked up just in time to see the Ood lower his arms, eyes now glowing red. He snarled and lunged for her, and she ducked just in time to avoid being touched by the glowing translator ball in his hand, crouching down and causing the Ood’s momentum to carry him over her and crash to the floor.

Najia managed to catch both Yaz and Sudi’s sleeves and pulled them back towards the door, away from the commotion, while the Doctor picked herself off the floor and reached down to help the Ood. Before she had the chance, Yuri pulled a taser gun from a desk drawer and shot the Ood.

The Ood made a strangled, high pitched noise and collapsed on the ground, twitching.

The Doctor rounded on Yuri, eyes blazing. “What did you do that for?!”

“It was self defense! He was coming straight for me!” he protested, gripping the taser with white knuckles.

“You haven’t been listening at all, have you?” the Doctor snarled at him. “They’re in pain and asking for help!” She picked the electrodes off the Ood with her fingertips, like you might pick a hot mushroom off a pizza, placed her hands on the Ood’s temples and waited for it to relax as her telepathic shields settled into place. “And now you’ve gone and attacked one. Every Ood in the city is bound to be out for you now!”

“Look,” Yuri defended himself, “I’ve never seen the Ood behave like that, and I really don’t want to see it again. I’m not going to allow this here, and if I have to put down every Ood that goes insane to do it, I will.”

“I’m not going to let you kill the Ood," the Doctor told him icily, snatching the taser out of his hand and stepping up into his face. "This one going rogue is only a symptom of a much bigger problem you have here. Now tell me where we can find more information on this Amplifier.”

Yuri stared her down defiantly for a minute before finally looking away. “There’s blueprints, manuals, all that kind of stuff in a vault several floors downstairs.”

“Show me.”

Yuri laughed. “Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how many Ood work at City Hall? I’m not stepping outside those doors until I’m sure they’re not a threat.”

“Fine. Give me a map. I’ll get them myself.”

Yuri located a few binders on the bookshelf and removed a map from one of them. He plucked a pen out of the jar on his desk and wrote a code in the corner. “Vault’s down here, on C level. Code is in the top corner.”

The Doctor took the map from him and looked it over, her expression fading from irritation to confusion. “Who designed this building, anyway? It is supposed to look like a maze?”

“It’s pretty old,” Yuri answered brusquely. “It started out as a bunker, then they added on a school, then they built City Hall on top of it and connected it to the Amplifier tower. It’s really easy to get lost in the lower levels, which turns out to be very good for keeping the wrong sort of people out of our business,” he added pointedly.

“Good thing we’re the right sort of people, then.” The Doctor turned from him and strode towards the door. “Alright. Sudi, it’s probably better for you and Mickey to stay behind locked doors, too. Yaz, Najia… keep an eye on him.” She shot a warning glance at Yuri and pushed the taser into Yaz’s hands. 

“I’m coming with you,” Yaz replied immediately, trying to hand the taser back, ignoring the Doctor’s protests. “You shouldn’t be going out there alone.”

“If Yaz is going, I’m going,” Najia said.

“Well, someone’s got to stay here and make sure he doesn’t do any more harm,” the Doctor replied, turning so her back was to Yuri. “Najia, he listened to you. You should stay, it’ll be safer here for you anyway,” she said quietly. “I’ll look out for Yaz.”

Najia hesitated for a moment, then nodded in resignation. The Doctor handed her the taser and opened the doors.

“You’re not locking us in here with that Ood,” Yuri called after her.

The Doctor and Yaz exchanged a look, and wordlessly went back in, the Doctor lifting the Ood up under his arms and Yaz grabbing his legs as they moved him out into the hallway, arranging him in the most comfortable way they could manage. “I’m going to lock the doors. All of you stay in here, and we’ll be back shortly.” She made eye contact with Yuri, Najia and Sudi one last time before pulling the door closed behind her with a thud.


	8. Three Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update has taken so long, I've been over this chapter SO MANY TIMES before I felt like it worked for me. :)

Yaz knelt by the unconscious Ood in the hallway, making sure his uniform wasn’t uncomfortably tight around his neck and gently placing his translator ball back on the hook on the front of his uniform. “Do you think he’ll be alright?” she asked, standing up and brushing the dust off her jeans.

The Doctor took one last solemn look at the Ood before leading the way down the hall. “I think he’ll be one hundred percent better once we take care of this virus,” she answered after a thoughtful pause.

“Can we take them back to their home planet when this is all over?” Yaz asked as she followed.

“Hard to say, really,” the Doctor replied. “They may not be able to survive there anymore, with what’s been done to them and what they’ve been through here. I’m not sure what the kindest option would be yet.” She chewed her lip and stared at the hideous carpet as they walked. “I do owe it to them to figure it out, though.”

“What do you mean?” Yaz asked.

“Well,” the Doctor started. “I’ve met the Ood a couple times before, like I said. The first time I met them, I couldn’t save any of them. Lost the TARDIS, again, thought Rose and I were going to be stuck on that ship for the rest of our lives. And then when we did get out, I only had the chance to save the humans. The Ood on the ship got sucked into a black hole.”

Yaz grimaced. “That sounds horrible. You’ve really got to stop losing the TARDIS,” she teased.

The Doctor laughed. “Yeah, I do. Being stuck there would have been awful. They tried to have us work in the laundry.” She made a face. “Can you imagine, me, stuck on a ship with a proper job? In laundry??”

Yaz laughed too. “Sounds terrible.” 

It always made Yaz curious, hearing about the Doctor’s previous adventures. She supposed it was a good thing she’d been around so much, that she already knew of the Ood, since they were such a crucial part of this puzzle. But every time the Doctor mentioned a new name, she couldn’t help but wonder who these people were, what they were doing now. Yaz assumed that many of these people meant much more to the Doctor than just passing friends- the way she said the name Rose, the time she’d mentioned someone named Ace… and the people she’d never even mentioned, like River. Once again, Yaz wondered how she’d known the Doctor for the better part of a year and had never once heard anything about her wife. It almost felt like she deliberately avoided talking about her personal life. After all, she had no problem name-dropping historical figures. 

An awful thought struck Yaz like a train. What if the Doctor was so evasive about her personal life because she wanted to keep something secret from Yaz? What if she was hiding something? And if she was, what sort of thing would be so big that she would actively go out of her way to avoid talking about it? Yaz assumed the virus had planted that thought in her mind, but now that it was there, she _had_ to know. “Why don’t you ever talk about her?” Yaz blurted into the silence.

“What?” the Doctor asked with a blank look.

“River. I mean, you never said you’re married.”

“Hmm.” the Doctor looked away, hoping for a distraction from Yaz’s question, but found nothing. “Well, I don’t suppose I am anymore. I told you she died.”

“Yeah, but… I dunno. That just seems like an awfully big thing to never mention to the people you like to call your ‘fam’. And you’ve watched Graham go through the same thing, losing Grace like that. I mean, I get that it’s probably not very easy to talk about, but I can’t understand how it’s never even once come up, even in passing. And you never talk about yourself, not really. You’ll tell us all kinds of things about Shakespeare and Agatha Christie and the frankly terrifying bedtime stories your Gran used to tell you, but you’ve avoided ever saying anything about yourself.” Yaz looked up at her. 

The Doctor frowned, taking her time to formulate an answer, wondering what was truly behind Yaz’s sudden curiosity, if the virus was messing with their heads or if Yaz was genuinely worried that she might be misplacing her trust. Neither option was going to end well, if they started discussing it here. “Thirteen lifetimes, you know, I’d spend the rest of this one talking if I told you everything,” she deflected, and Yaz gave her an odd look.

“Yeah, but what exactly does that mean, thirteen lifetimes?” Yaz asked.

“It means I’m old!” The Doctor laughed, attempting to lighten the conversation. “I’m a crotchety old grandpa with a cantankerous time machine.” She grinned at Yaz, but Yaz was looking downward as she walked, clearly not satisfied with the answers she was getting. The Doctor sighed. Obviously something had gotten into Yaz’s mind, and the Doctor knew her well enough to know that she was unlikely to just drop it. “Suppose I told you all about all the friends I’ve had, that used to travel with me, and why they stopped. Maybe you’d want to stay home, if you knew.”

Yaz rolled her eyes. “I would never want to live out a boring, mediocre rest of my life at home.”

The Doctor smiled. “I know the feeling.”

Yaz threw her hands in the air, the frustration right there under the surface. “See? You say stuff like that but what does that even mean? Why are you always so evasive? Come on. Tell me, I dunno, about where you grew up or what your family was like, or… I dunno. Something I don’t already know about you,” she goaded.

The Doctor pursed her lips, frustrated with Yaz’s persistence, worried that anything she would say in this setting would send Yaz screaming into the night. It felt like they’d suddenly hit such a delicate point, like Yaz’s faith in her teetered on what she might or might not say. And the Doctor absolutely did not want to have this conversation right now. She was far more sensitive to the psychic energy on this planet than the humans were, and the atmosphere pressed into her skull, behind her eyes, coloring her memories with the guilt and fear and hatred of all her years, it definitely wouldn’t do to start talking about Gallifrey or the Time War or what had happened to her other friends, not here. Perhaps back on Earth, sometime, when she could mentally distance herself from the guilt and explain herself properly…

“Yaz, I… why do we have to talk about this right now?” she asked quietly.

Yaz stopped walking for a minute, giving the Doctor a shrewd look. “You are hiding something, aren’t you? What is it you don’t want to tell me?”

The Doctor recognized the mistrust growing in Yaz’s eyes, and it hit her that she was handling this exactly the wrong way. Yaz wanted answers now, and she was going to have to give Yaz something, or risk losing her completely, and she couldn’t have that. “I’m not trying to hide anything, Yaz, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” She caught the skeptical look on Yaz’s face and sighed in resignation. “Tell you what. You get three questions, anything that’s on your mind, and I’ll be completely honest with you. What do you want to know?”

Yaz looked a bit surprised at the sudden openness, and she started walking again as she carefully weighed her options. “Alright. I’ll go back to what I asked a minute ago. How come you don’t talk about River?”

The Doctor wrestled with her answer for a moment, facing the fact that she was far better at answering questions evasively than honestly. It was almost hard to come up with the truth, when you were so practiced at guiding a conversation away from it, but the guilt was already bubbling to the surface and she found herself replying. “Because I ruined her, Yaz,” the Doctor finally answered quietly. “I ruined her before she was even born, just by traveling with her parents. She grew up without a family because of me, her parents lost their daughter because of me. They all deserved so much better than what they got.” She paused, hoping she wasn’t saying too much. “If I could just learn when to call it a day and leave people alone… but I’m pretty rubbish at that, and it just ruins everyone I touch. Some pretty terrible things have happened to my friends who travelled with me, if I’d just let them go before they got hurt. And for what? I’ve done just as much harm to this universe as I have good.”

Yaz looked up at her, full of confusion. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Oh, but it is.” The Doctor paused, reigning herself in and pushing back against the guilt that was battering her mind. “I don’t tell you everything because sometimes the guilt is just too much. It’s not productive to rehash it all and fall back into the mental trap of hating myself over it. Took me a long time to learn that. But I promised myself I’d get it right this time. Can’t do anything about my past, but I can do what I can to put it behind me, and start fresh, and do what I can to do the right thing by you.” She gave Yaz a small smile.

Yaz frowned, taking it all in, equal parts relieved that she was getting answers and annoyed that what the Doctor was saying raised far more questions than it answered. “Alright… question two. What makes you think you’ve caused so much harm to the universe?”

The Doctor sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Oi. You’re not pulling any punches today, are you?”

“You’re the idiot who gave me three questions,” Yaz reminded her, keeping her tone light, almost joking.

The Doctor glanced up at her, no trace of humor on her face. “Yes, but are you sure that’s the question you want to ask?”

Yaz nodded apprehensively.

The Doctor chewed her lip, taking a moment to decide how to answer, taking so long that Yaz started to wonder if she was going to answer at all. 

“Look, I mean, it doesn’t have to be a comprehensive list,” Yaz amended. “I’m just confused. All we’ve ever seen you do is try to help, so for you to talk like you’re some kind of comic book super-villain… it just doesn’t make sense.”

The Doctor gave Yaz a very small smile. “Nobody ever thinks they’re the villain in their own story, Yaz.” She sighed. “The universe is full of people who only think they’re doing the right thing in the moment, who are just doing what makes sense to them, but they still do awful things.”

Yaz waited for her to continue, unsure where exactly she was going with this. “Okay,” she prodded.

“Think about Charlie, back at Kerblam,” the Doctor tried a different angle. “Was he the bad guy in that scenario?”

Yaz frowned. “Well, yeah. I mean, he was going to kill people.”

The Doctor nodded. “For a good cause, though, right?”

Yaz paused. 

“Really think about it, Yaz. Think about all the homeless people on Kandoka, who can’t find work, all the families there who are starving because the system is stacked against them.” She paused to let the imagery sink in. “Was he wrong for wanting that to stop?”

Yaz hesitated again. “So are you saying you agreed with him?”

“No, obviously not, I did stop him after all,” the Doctor replied. “I let him die,” she continued softly, her voice catching on her regret. “But he had a decently honorable motive for what he was doing, don’t you think?”

Yaz nodded slowly.

“But he was going to murder thousands of innocent people to make his point, and he had to be stopped,” she continued, waiting for Yaz to nod her agreement again before continuing. “He could have done so many other things to address the issue, but he chose murder. My point is, Yaz… I’ve been Charlie. I get so caught up in trying to do what I think is right, I forget the big picture and I do terrible things. And so often, there’s no one to stop me.” 

Yaz studied her as they walked, noticing her shoulders hunching over as she talked and the way she stared into the distance. “So what are you saying?”

“I should know better by now, Yaz. I try my best, all I want to do is help, but it always goes wrong. I always end up hurting someone.” She chewed her lip again as the guilt came rushing back, growing more agitated. “I mean, look at what happened to Grace! And I’ve done it so, so many times. I tried to let the Family of Blood off easy, and lost my temper when they found me out anyway. There was an incident on Mars, a long time ago, and all I was trying to do was save a few people and I just screwed it all up. I got too full of myself. I never learn.” She stared darkly down the hallway, barely watching where she was walking.

Yaz frowned again. “So you’re worried that maybe you should avoid saving people on the off chance it might go wrong?”

“That’s not… no, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Well it kinda sounds like it,” Yaz argued. “If you’re trying to tell me you think you’re a horrible person because you’ve failed a few times at helping people, then you’re crazy. I mean honestly! You saved the whole earth on New Year’s, you said the whole world could have been destroyed thanks to that Dalek, but you stopped it!”

“Don’t bring the Daleks into this!” the Doctor snapped, suddenly turning on Yaz. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I do to get rid of them, they’re worse than cockroaches, every time I think I’m finally rid of them they come back. How is it fair?! How do they _always_ manage to survive?” The Doctor realized she was yelling at Yaz when she flinched away, and continued in a lower voice, trying to rein it back in despite the floodgates having been opened. “If anything in this universe deserves to be wiped out, it’s them, and I can’t ever seem to manage it. They should have burned,” she said coldly. “It isn’t fair. It isn’t _right_.” The Doctor fixed Yaz with a stare so full of fury and hatred, Yaz took a step back before she even realized what she was doing. Suddenly ashamed, the Doctor turned away and continued down the hallway, Yaz following quietly a couple steps behind.

Yaz turned the conversation over in her mind several times as they walked in silence. What did that mean, when she said she couldn’t ever seem to manage it? “What did you do?” she asked hesitantly, unsure if she really wanted the answer.

“There was a war,” the Doctor answered with a steely look. “And I ended it.”

Yaz chewed the inside of her lip to keep herself from asking anything else. _“I learned to think like a Dalek a long time ago,”_ the Doctor had told them once. At the time, Yaz had taken it to mean she was good at understanding the psychology of what an opponent might do, but now…? She didn’t know what was worse: the implication that the Daleks were all murderous maniacs and the Doctor was on the same wavelength, or the idea that there were just a few bad Daleks and the Doctor was eager to wipe them out anyway. It didn’t sound anything like the happy-go-lucky woman she’d come to know. But that was the point, wasn’t it. She didn’t really know her at all. 

The Doctor poked her head through the door to the stairwell, checking for Ood, then held the door open for Yaz to step through first. Yaz kept her distance as she stepped through, completely failing to notice the Doctor’s increasingly worried expression. “You still have a third question, you know,” the Doctor said quietly after a long silence.

Yaz tried to smile. “Maybe later.” 

They walked in complete silence, Yaz keeping her distance down several flights of stairs, hiding in the stairwell for a moment while some Ood walked past obliviously, and down an interminably long hallway. Yaz found herself starting to wish that someone else had come along with them, so she didn’t have to be completely alone with the Doctor. She watched the Doctor approach the vault, pull out the map with the code on it, and punch it in.

The vault made an angry beep and refused to open, and the Doctor glared at it before pulling out the sonic and forcing it open that way. She rummaged around in the vault, and it suddenly struck Yaz how very _alien_ the Doctor was, how fundamentally Yaz had misunderstood who she was. Sure, Yaz knew she was alien as a fact, but it hadn’t really struck her until just now, and her uneasiness grew. They really were from separate worlds, with separate worldviews and apparently separate ideas about how to deal with alien threats like the Daleks. And hadn’t Yaz watched her toss a Dalek into a supernova, hadn’t Ryan’s dad almost been killed as they watched the Dalek cling to him for its life? It had all worked out in the end, but if it had come down to it, if the Doctor had to choose, would she have chosen to save Ryan’s dad or kill the Dalek? And now Yaz’s mum was with her, on an adventure, just like Ryan’s dad had been… 

“Aha, this looks like it,” the Doctor muttered, pulling out a thick manual the size of a phone book and flipping through it. She held it out for Yaz and discovered that Yaz hadn’t followed her into the vault, she was all the way up against the wall across the hallway from the door. “Yaz?” she asked gently, breaking Yaz out of her thoughts. The Doctor didn’t miss her guarded expression as she stepped forward to take the manual. 

The Doctor busied herself in the safe again, hoping to find building blueprints, but barely paying attention to what she was looking at as her hearts pounded in her ears. She should have insisted Yaz stay in the safety of Yuri’s office, she should never have given Yaz the chance to start asking questions while they were here, and she never should have lost control like that. Oh, the Doctor just wanted to hop in the TARDIS and go back about fifteen minutes and slap herself in the face, she was _so_ stupid. And now what? The look on Yaz’s face told the Doctor she’d already said enough, how could she possibly explain herself at this point? Yaz was smart, she would know the Doctor would only be trying to justify what she’d done. And then what? They’d get back to Sheffield, Yaz surely wouldn’t want to join them traveling anymore… Graham and Ryan would want to know why… and then the Doctor would be alone again. The thought threatened to break her.

The Doctor finally located the blueprints, unrolling them one by one and trying her hardest to focus on what she was looking at. She finally found two or three that looked about right, so she rolled them up and handed them to Yaz too, carefully avoiding meeting her eyes in shame. She turned and re-locked the vault, glanced in Yaz’s direction to make sure she was following her, and started the walk back to the offices with Yaz a few steps behind. Neither of them spoke a word until they reached the stairwell, when they opened the door and nearly tripped over Najia, dead in a pool of blood at their feet.

“Oh my god! Mum! MUM!” Yaz yelled, dropping the manual and the blueprints and falling to her knees, desperately checking for breath, for a pulse, for any sign of remaining life. “She must’ve tried to follow us, why would she… and with all the Ood out there… we’ve got to get her to a hospital or something, we can’t just…we have to…” Yaz glanced up at the Doctor in her panic. “What, are you just going to stand there?” she spat, waiting for a reaction. “Come on! HELP ME!”

“Yaz,” the Doctor said as gently and carefully as she could- even though, Yaz noticed, she was standing as far away from the body as she could get without actually leaving the stairwell. “I don’t think that’s your mum.”

“What are you talking about?” Yaz snarled, standing up and marching towards the Doctor, blind panic and rage and grief all mingling together. “Of course she’s my mum, she’s… Why did you _ever_ ask her to come along? What’s _wrong_ with you?” she shrieked, raising her fists and giving the Doctor a surprisingly strong shove.

“Yaz, Yaz…” the Doctor raised her hands in a small surrender, making no effort to stop Yaz’s rage at her. “No, I mean… when did your mum get a red jumper?” She gestured towards the body, and Yaz turned to look. “She was wearing a brown jacket when we left. She hasn’t had a red jumper like that all day.”

Yaz stared, trying to remember, panic and grief and hope flinging wildly around her head. “But…” she whispered, confused. “I don’t… but that means...” 

They watched as the body disappeared in a familiar puff of white smoke.

Yaz felt frozen to the spot, too emotionally wrung out to even cry. After a minute, she sat down on the lowest step of the staircase, elbows on knees and face in her hands, wanting nothing more than for this day to be over, to get her mum and get off this planet.

She heard the Doctor sit on the stair next to her. “Do you want to go home?” the Doctor asked almost imperceptibly.

Yaz looked up. “What?”

“If you want to go home…” the Doctor cleared her throat and tried again, “we can go and get your mum, and I’ll take you back to Sheffield. You don’t have to stay.” 

Yaz almost nodded, thinking over her options. Her mind was reeling, she was ten thousand percent done with this day, but… “Doctor, I need more information.” Yaz crossed her arms, looking over at her, studying her reactions. “When you said… about the Daleks, you said you can’t ever seem to manage wiping them out. You realize that makes it sound like you’ve tried it before.”

The Doctor refused to meet her eyes. “It’s a very long story, Yaz.”

“Well, then, start talking.”

The Doctor sighed, staring down at her hands. “I’m never going to claim I’ve always done the right thing, Yaz, but I can promise you that I’ve always tried to do what’s best with the information I had at the time.” She glanced up to see if Yaz was listening, and her hearts sank at Yaz’s stony expression. She looked back down and continued talking. “The Daleks were an experiment gone wrong, created without any sense of love or pity or compassion. Since their creation, their only goal has been to exterminate everyone and everything that isn’t a Dalek. They were made to destroy.” She pulled her feet up on the stair below the one she sat on and wrapped her arms around her knees. “A long time ago- a very long time ago, now, they picked a fight with my people. Time Lords never could resist a good show of might, especially when they were under attack, and a war broke out. The Last Great Time War.” She paused.

“Go on,” Yaz prodded when she didn’t continue.

“I ran. I didn’t want to fight in the war, I’ve never thought fighting is how you work things out. The whole thing was completely senseless, and I watched my people grow crueler and crueler as the war raged on. They took it out into the universe, they destroyed entire galaxies with their fighting and it was only getting worse. I watched them destroy so many innocent civilizations, Yaz… all those lives, all those _people_… and they died, because of me, because I was trying to stay out of it. But it escalated, they weren’t going to stop, and eventually I realized I was going to have to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and watch them destroy the universe, but… sometimes that’s the choice you have. Your planet or the universe. Pompeii or the Earth. How do you make that choice?”

Yaz paused, horrified. “What did you do?”

“Well.” The Doctor looked up. “It’s complicated. There’s two timelines, and I remember them both. They’re both equally true. Cross your own timeline too much, your memories get wobbly, time is pretty complicated when you start meddling in your own history.” She took a deep breath. “In one timeline, I ended the war by destroying them all. Daleks and Time Lords. The whole planet burned, there were no survivors. Except the Daleks, somehow, a few of them escaped and survived.” She stared into the corner of the stairwell. “In the other timeline, I was able to just lock the war away in a pocket dimension and seal them off at the end of the universe. They’re alive, they’re just… quarantined. And none too happy about it, either.”

Yaz stared in disbelief. “So your planet… your people…”

“They’re lost to me, Yaz. I’m the only one left out here in this big old universe.” She sighed. “Just me and the Daleks that managed to survive. And I’ve tried to work with them, I thought once they were evolving and I might be able to save them from themselves, but…” she trailed off again. “The ruthless ones always win rather than the ones that want to change. They’re still out there, still killing innocent people just because they like it, and I can’t ever seem to put an end to it. Every drastic measure I’ve ever taken to put an end to the killing was for nothing. It _isn’t_ fair.” 

And there it was, Yaz thought. That was the Doctor she knew, trying to save the universe all by herself. Literally, all by herself, if her planet was gone like she’d said, and Yaz’s heart almost broke for her as all her suspicion vanished in an instant. Yaz wrapped her arms around the Doctor and laid her head on her shoulder, wordlessly trying to apologize for even bringing all this up in the first place, all because this stupid virus had made her question her friend’s integrity. “We really should have picked a better planet to have this conversation, huh?”

The Doctor barked out a laugh. “Yeah, there are better venues for a heart-to-heart, that’s for sure.” She returned Yaz’s hug awkwardly before releasing her after a minute. “Why, you haven’t been worrying this whole time that you’ve been travelling around with a psychopath, have you?”

Yaz shook her head. “No, I never even thought about it, really. I just got to thinking, you know, we’ve never heard anything about River and I guess it just kind of scared me into wondering what else we don’t know about you. I mean, you kinda seem too good to be true.” Her eyes widened as she spoke faster and tried to amend what had slipped out of her mouth. “You know, travelling and all. It’s better than staying in Sheffield by a long shot. But, I dunno, I just got to thinking, and we’re on this stupid planet, and it just started to make me worry, and I guess I just figured you’ve got to be human, too. Well, not literally, I mean, you know what I mean,” Yaz stumbled.

The Doctor gave her a small smile. “There’s no species out there that’s immune to making colossal mistakes, unfortunately. Even Time Lords.” She rolled her eyes. “Especially Time Lords. The more advanced the civilization, the greater capacity it has for trouble. That’s why it’s always been nice to travel with someone, you lot keep me out of my own head.” She watched Yaz for a minute, looking very vulnerable and as though she would rather ask any question other than the one she had in mind. “Are you wanting to go back home?”

Yaz shook her head. “No. I want to stay with you.”

The Doctor gave her a huge smile and a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Because I love having you travel with me. I was really hoping you'd want to stay.” She stood up and held out her hand to Yaz. “However, we should probably get back to the office before your mum thinks I abducted you.”

Yaz took her hand and let the Doctor pull her to her feet, brushing dust off her jeans and picking up the manual and blueprints again. “Doctor? I’m sorry I got weird. I know that probably wasn’t easy to talk about, and I’m sorry I brought it up.” 

“I’d be more than a little concerned if I yelled at you like that and you didn’t, Yaz. Especially here. And, for that matter, I’m really sorry I started yelling. I got carried away, and I shouldn’t have done.” The Doctor held out her hand to help carry the materials from the vault, and Yaz handed her the manual.

“Let’s just agree to keep all serious conversations from here on out limited to planet Earth, then, shall we?” Yaz asked teasingly.

The Doctor laughed. “Now that, I can do.” She waited until Yaz was in step with her and started up the stairs. 

“So, Pompeii, then?” Yaz started again, only half teasing. “That was you?”

“Are you surprised?”

“No.”

“Well I was surprised. I thought we were in ancient Rome.”

Yaz couldn’t help but laugh. “Those TARDIS steering problems have been going on for a while then, hmm?”

“Oi! Cheap shot.” The Doctor sounded offended, but she was grinning.

“Yeah?” Yaz teased. “So your friend didn’t mind landing on a volcano rather than a tourist destination? Because you know if that was us, Graham would absolutely have something to say about that.”

“Oh, I did get shouted at, for sure. But then again she was always shouting about something,” the Doctor told her with a laugh. “But for all her yelling, she was unfailingly kind. She helped me save the Ood the last time I met them.” The Doctor reached the top of the stairs first, and held the door open for Yaz again as she reminisced. “She called me Spaceman.”

Yaz smiled. “She sounds fun.”

The Doctor smiled too. “She was my best friend.”

“Where is she now? Do you ever stay in touch with her?” Yaz asked.

The Doctor hesitated. “Ah… no, actually. She wouldn’t remember me if I did. It’s another very long story, but she can’t actually remember me or her mind could burn. Although,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, tempted, “she wouldn’t recognize me now. But it’s probably safer for her if I don’t tempt fate like that.”

Yaz frowned. “That’s terrible.”

The Doctor nodded. 

Yaz paused, curious but also not wanting to push the conversation into a bad place again. “Can I ask, where are some of your other friends now?”

“Hmm.” The Doctor figured she really had nothing to lose at this point, and she shrugged. “Well, Rose got trapped in a parallel universe. I mean, she’s fine, she’s got her family, but that universe is closed off, so there’s no way I can get in touch with her ever again. Susan met someone, and it was better for her to stay with him and live a normal life than keep bouncing around the universe with me. Sarah Jane went home, well… I dropped her off in the wrong location. Felt a bit bad about that when I found out. But she’s got a son, and a dog, sort of, and they’re happy.” 

Realization dawned on Yaz all at once. “Wait. Didn’t you tell the nurses at A&E that your name was Sarah Jane?”

The Doctor chuckled. “Well I had to give them some human name, they’d have never let me in if I told them my name was the Doctor. Used to go by John Smith, but nobody’ll believe that one anymore. I couldn’t really come up with anything else at that particular moment.”

“You know, Mum called you Sarah for like a week before I figured out who she was talking about.” 

The Doctor laughed. 

Yaz had a thought. “Okay, so do I still get my third question?”

The Doctor laughed again, a touch of nervousness coming through. “You haven’t had enough questions for one day?”

“Nope.”

“Fine. Ask away.”

“What’s your name? Like your real name?”

The Doctor laughed again, easily this time. “Oh, Yaz. I’d tell you that, but then I’d have to marry you,” she said with a wink.

“Alright, fine, I accept,” Yaz replied, her tone joking, but a thrill raced through her at the thought. “Go on then.”

“I’m serious! It’s a Time Lord thing. Can’t say.”

Yaz raised her eyebrows. “It’s Rumplestiltskin, then, isn’t it?”

The Doctor made a face, but she was laughing. “What? No! Names have a lot of power, you know, you’ve got to be careful how and when you use them. Especially for Time Lords. When we pass the Academy and gain access to the Time Vortex, we sort of get… loomed into the fabric of space and time. So we hide our real names and choose a new name, so nobody can ever use it against us and break spacetime. Only the people we choose to trust as deeply as a spouse can ever know our real names.”

Yaz blinked. “Wow. So you chose the Doctor?”

The Doctor nodded. “I wanted to be someone the universe could call on for help and healing.” She smiled. “Now my closest friend, when I was a kid, he chose the name the Master. I’ll leave the psychoanalysis on that one to you.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully as they finally reached the office and the Doctor pulled out her sonic to unlock the door.

Yaz laughed, feeling so much lighter now that their conversation was back in safe territory and they were on good terms again. “The Ood has gone,” she noted, looking at the spot of floor where they’d left him as the lock popped free and the door swung open.

The Doctor nodded. “I’m not surprised, really, although I am worried about what he’s up to now that he’s up and about.” She pulled the doors open and they stepped into the office.

Yaz immediately rushed to Najia for a hug, and Najia returned it, somewhat confused. “Something happen, sweetheart?” she asked.

Yaz and the Doctor exchanged a brief look before they both shook their heads. “Nope, nothing. I was just worried about you up here.”

Najia smiled. “It’s really more of my job to worry about you, you know.”

The Doctor locked the doors behind them and turned to the group. “Anything exciting happen up here while we were gone?” she asked.

Mickey had made himself the center of attention, and he was giggling hysterically as Yuri hid behind his hands and surprised him again, pulling his hands aside and sending Mickey into new peals of contagious laughter. Sudi was laughing too, holding Mickey steady and keeping him from falling onto the floor as he leaned back with giggles. “Nothing crazy. They’ve literally been playing peekaboo this whole time,” Sudi replied to the Doctor with a grin. “I’ve never seen Mickey laugh this long. He’s gonna get hiccups in a minute.”

The Doctor grinned. “Well, object permanence _is_ hilarious.” She took the blueprints from Yaz and set them on the table with the manual, reaching over the desk and giving Mickey a little tickle and setting him giggling again. “Alright,” the Doctor said, leaning over the documents. “We’ve got the manual, we’ve got blueprints. Let’s see what exactly we’re dealing with here.”


	9. Against the Dying of the Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to @NeverEverFaceTheDark for beta-ing and making some suggestions! I had a good giggle at a few of your comments like free exposure therapy. XD
> 
> And also thanks to everyone else for being patient as I take longer and longer to post new chapters lol!

Yuri tacked the blueprints onto the one bare wall in the office opposite the bookcase, laying them carefully so as not to cause any lasting damage to the paper. Yaz came to stand next to him and examine the plans for the Amplifier, which looked a bit to her like a brain in a dome-covered swimming pool, a thought that made her equally intrigued and disgusted. 

The Doctor was thumbing through the manual to the Amplifier, pacing the room without even a glance to where she was walking. Yaz watched her chew her lip as she flipped through the pages, the line between her brows deepening as she paced. “This is a fascinating piece of equipment,” she decided aloud at last. “I’ve seen psychic generators before, but nothing quite this massive.”

“So what do we do?” Yaz asked. “Are we going to turn it off, or try to treat it?”

“Treat it?” the Doctor repeated with a confused look.

Yaz shrugged. “I dunno, there’s a virus, you’re the Doctor, just kind of seemed like a logical conclusion.”

The Doctor smiled. “I like that,” she said, setting the manual aside for a minute, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. “But Hvordin is nearly impossible to treat. You can really only combat it before symptoms set in, and the Amplifier’s way too far gone for that. The safest thing for us to do is just turn it off and let the virus die.”

“But if people are already experiencing the symptoms from the Amplifier, isn’t it too late?” Yaz asked.

The Doctor glanced back down at the manual. “If I’m understanding it correctly, the Amplifier isn’t projecting the actual virus. It’s projecting all the symptoms, the fear and the anger and all of that, because that’s what the virus is doing to the Amplifier, and the Amplifier is set up to project those emotions.”

“So what happens when we turn it off?” Yuri asked.

The Doctor looked around the room thoughtfully, brightening suddenly as her eyes landed on the baby. “Can I borrow Mickey for a moment?” she asked Sudi.

Sudi hesitated for a moment. “Yeah, ok,” she agreed, handing him to the Doctor.

The Doctor sat down in a nearby chair, placing Mickey on her lap and pulling out the sonic. She waved it in front of his face while she entertained him by making silly faces- sticking out her tongue, giving him a grumpy face, doing a peekaboo. He giggled and tried to grab the sonic, thinking this was all a very fine game as she scrunched her face at the device.

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed a moment later, grinning brightly at the sonic, then glancing up at her audience. “It’s all going to be fine. Well, for now, anyway, it’ll take some work, but what doesn’t?” She gave Mickey a quick kiss on the cheek and handed him back to Sudi.

“Care to explain?” Yuri asked curiously.

“Brains are absolutely fascinating, the way they process thoughts. It’s like… pressing play on a tape deck, or walking down a path in a garden,” the Doctor started, struggling to organize her thoughts coherently before they flew out of her mouth. 

“A what deck?” Sudi asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Cassette tapes are old technology, even for me, Doctor,” Najia reminded her with a little smile.

“Alright, like a digital recording then! Or like the garden path!” The Doctor moved behind Yuri’s desk and rummaged through the drawers, pulling out some odds and ends and scattering them across the surface of the desk- a highlighter, a staple puller, a pack of sticky notes- and arranged them in a pattern Yaz couldn’t quite make sense of. “Thoughts in your brain are really just a series of neurons firing in a specific order. Like the recording, something triggers the thought, it presses play, and the song plays the same way every time. Your brain walks down a familiar path.” She walked her fingers from the stapler to the highlighter to the jar of paper clips. “But when you start something new, like say the first time you knit something, you’re walking your brain down a totally new path, that’s why it feels so awkward the first time. But the more you do it-“ she walked her fingers across a series of different objects, back and forth, “the more familiar it becomes until it’s an established path in your mind. Like running a wheelbarrow down the same path in a garden, every day, deepening that rut until the wheelbarrow really can’t take any other path at all unless you lift it out. Sort of like when you keep telling yourself you’re no good at something, and you start to believe it. You have to really work to get your brain to ignore the old path and create a new path.”

The Doctor stepped back out from behind the desk, abandoning her visual aid, and laid the manual for the Amplifier on the little free space she’d left at the edge of the desk, pointing to a paragraph. “The Amplifier serves as the trigger for the positive neural pathway. It presses play, it triggers the release of serotonin and gives you a little shove down the positive pathway, and your brain goes down the path it’s programmed for.”

Yuri squinted at her, like he was barely following. “That’s an awful lot of metaphors. What does this mean for turning it off?”

The Doctor grinned, as though that was exactly the question she’d been waiting for. “That’s what I was looking at with Mickey. In all the generations you’ve lived on this planet, under the influence of the Amplifier, you’ve built up an _extremely_ strong positive neural pathway, it’s like the Grand Canyon of neural pathways, which is excellent news for you. Your brains have literally evolved to seek out that positivity and go down that path naturally. So when we turn the Amplifier off, you’re essentially just walking the same path you’ve done your whole lives, but this time you don’t have a guide.” Her smile faded just a bit. “The bad news is, the hostility of the planet has been creating its own neural pathways, too, so it will be easier than we think to fall back into negativity. People who want to focus on the negative are going to, and I’m guessing it will be especially hard to refocus them before they let the hostility of the planet take them over completely. You’ll have to rebuild the Amplifier as fast as you can, especially if the population’s been primed for the negative by the virus, or at least step up and be that positive trigger the people need to keep their faith. But, if I’m right, and I usually am, we can turn it off for now without causing immediate chaos.”

Yuri nodded slowly. “Well. If that’s the only chance we’ve got, I guess we’ll have to take it, won’t we?”

“So, how do we turn it off?” Yaz asked. “Just, like, a power switch or something?” 

“Not really, no,” the Doctor answered, flipping to another section of the manual. “It really wasn’t meant to ever be shut off. It’s got a secondary power source that connects to a backup generator that runs for years if something happens to the original power source. The problem is, the mechanism that processes the power, and switches from one source to the other runs straight through the living component, which is the infected component.”

“Why is that a problem?” Najia asked.

“The long version or the short version?” the Doctor asked, glancing up from the book.

“Short,” Yaz and Najia answered together.

The Doctor sighed. “If we don’t cut power to both sources at exactly the same time, the living component gets that additional jolt of electricity as the source switches over. Normally, it would just give a quick boost to the positivity it’s supposed to project, but in this case, an additional surge of energy could trigger the release of the virus for real, directly into the minds of everyone who’s been under the effects of the Amplifier. In fact, given that the Ood managed to crank it up to full power, an extra surge of energy could even crack the protective dome and then we're really in for it.”

There was silence in the room for a minute, until Yuri finally spoke up. “I guess that means we’re pretty much doomed, then, doesn’t it?” Everyone looked over at him as he spoke. “I mean, even if you cut the power sources at the same time, there’s still going to be residual electricity in the Amplifier. It has plenty of time to bounce around and trigger the release of the virus before it dissipates. We’re doomed.”

The Doctor glanced around the room, taking in Yuri’s defeated expression, the way Sudi was holding Mickey with all the fear and protectiveness of a terrified mother, Najia’s air of nervous curiosity, and Yaz… sweet Yaz, staring back at her, determined and calculating and so very _trusting_. “No, we’re not,” the Doctor replied quietly. “I should be able to shield it. If we do it exactly right, we can shut it down and keep the virus contained.” She glanced back down at the manual, hoping nobody noticed the flicker of doubt in her voice as she spoke. 

Yaz stood up. “Well. I’m ready. Are you ready?” 

“I’m always ready,” the Doctor replied, forcing a grin. “Najia, that means we’ll need you this time, too. Yuri, Sudi, you two should stay here with the doors locked.” They nodded, and the Doctor turned to her friends, tossing the manual onto the desk. “Shall we?”

Yaz and Najia stepped into the hallway first, and as the Doctor turned to sonic the door shut, she heard Najia exclaim “Oh!” and grab onto her arm in surprise. The Doctor glanced up just in time to see an entire army of red-eyed Ood catch sight of them, holding their translator balls aloft, crackling with electricity. “Run!” the Doctor yelled at her friends.

The three of them tore down the hallway, skidding around a corner and sprinting to the doors that led to the stairwell. Yaz yanked the door open to see three more Ood, and yelped in surprise as she slammed the door in their faces. “Are we trapped?!” she asked breathlessly, looking back down the hall the way they’d come.

“Not yet,” the Doctor replied, quickly calculating a plan of action. “There’s one more route from here that I’m going to hope isn’t blocked off yet.” She grabbed Yaz’s hand and took off in the direction they’d come from, dropping it when they reached a lab door that she quickly sonicked open while Najia caught up. The three of them darted inside and slammed the door shut behind them, the Doctor sonicking it again for good measure. 

“Why are there so many more of them out now?” Yaz asked, trying to catch her breath.

The Doctor peered out of the small window in the door, watching the Ood storm by, varying colors and styles of uniforms on them- maintenance overalls, suits with ties, cooking aprons. “It’s got to have something to do with the virus,” she replied after a minute. “There’s what, hundreds of Ood here? And all of them are being affected by the virus, and since they all share each other’s mental states, it’s got to be like a feedback loop amongst themselves.” She turned back to Yaz and Najia. “And they seemed to be holding it together so well, until Yuri got out his taser.”

“But why would they hurt us? We didn’t attack them,” Yaz asked.

“I’m guessing they’re not after _us_, exactly, they’re just terrified and in pain. That doesn’t make for a terribly logical being,” the Doctor replied. “You’ve ever snapped at anyone who didn’t deserve it when you were in a lousy mood? This is like that, only… worse. Even if they don’t intend to harm us, I’d rather not take that chance.”

Najia shook her head. “How many do you think there are out there?”

“Hard to say,” the Doctor replied, turning and surveying the lab they were in. It was styled like a school science lab, with a door on each side of the room, long rows of workstations that had bits and bobs lying about on the counters. If it had been nearly any other time, she might have poked around to see what they were working on, but as it stood she was interested only in what lay beyond the other door. She peered out the window, and seeing nothing, motioned to Yaz and Najia to follow. “We’ll want to be quiet, if we can,” she warned them. “And whatever happens, don’t let them touch you with the translator ball.”

“What happens if they do?” Najia asked in a whisper.

“Electrocution,” the Doctor said.

Najia nodded. “Quiet it is, then.” 

The Doctor stuck her head out the door to check for Ood before leading them down the hallway. Nobody spoke as they crept through the maze of hallways, their footsteps only partially muffled by the thin carpet. When they heard footsteps belonging to someone else thudding in an adjacent hallway, Yaz grabbed Najia’s elbow, pulling her back protectively and shushing her as they pressed themselves up against the wall. The Doctor held a finger to her lips before peeking carefully around the corner, then relaxing and waving them forward. 

Yaz finally released the breath she’d been holding and let go of Najia’s arm, and they exchanged a look as they followed the Doctor into a stairwell and down several flights of stairs. They emerged into a hallway that was far older and more concrete than the upper levels. And oddest of all, standing right in front of them was a man.

“Dad?” Yaz asked, thoroughly confused.

Najia had taken a couple steps backward before she even realized what she was doing. “Oh, no, I don’t want to confront this today. Please don’t make me do this,” Najia said, turning to the Doctor as though she had control of the situation. “Not right here, not today…” she glanced over at Yaz and then back to the Doctor with a pleading look. “Not with Yaz here.”

“Najia, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the Doctor gave her arm a squeeze. “You know you can’t run from it, but you can do this. It’ll be alright in the end.”

“But…” she protested weakly, already knowing it was no use.

“I should have known you weren’t going to deal with things, even here,” the fake Hakim said in an almost mocking tone, and Najia turned to face him.

The Doctor took Yaz’s hand and pulled her back towards the stairwell, in an attempt to give Najia some space.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I just…” Najia trailed off. “I mean, how would I even have started that conversation? I don’t have any proof, just a worry about that one coworker of yours. What am I supposed to do, just ask you if you’re cheating over dinner some night?”

“Oh, right, of course,” he responded sarcastically. “Why would you actually talk to me when you can just silently judge me from afar? That’s part of what makes you so boring, you know.”

“Boring?” Najia’s tone was equally hurt and offended.

“Yes, boring! You’ve been boring since the day I met you, all the way back at school. You barely seemed interested in me, even then, of course I was going to turn to Natalia for a good time.”

“Oh, that was back in college! And you were an idiot back then, you’ve changed!”

“Yeah, but you still think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Me and my conspiracy theories- which are perfectly plausible, thank you very much- because only an idiot would believe something that wasn’t spoon fed to them, don’t you think? You’ve got the posh job, and I’m the idiot who sits at a desk all day and has to be there for the girls.”

“Don’t you bring the girls into this!”

“And do you have any idea how tedious that gets?? You working all those long shifts, at odd hours, I barely have a wife to come home to! And then I do get home, and Sonya’s on her phone blogging about celebrities or something, what a well-rounded daughter you raised there! And Yaz! She’s just like you, you know, always working, god forbid either of you have a personal life-“

“Alright, stop!” Najia cut him off fiercely, suddenly drawing herself up to her full height. “I am perfectly aware that nothing you’re saying right now is even remotely true, no matter how much I might worry if that’s what he thinks. You’re an apparition trying to push my buttons, not my husband. And frankly, since you’ve brought it up, when I do get home I’m going to sit down and talk with him and then I won’t have anything to worry about anymore at all. So you’ve served your purpose, and you can go.” Najia waved her hand dismissively.

The fake Hakim raised an eyebrow with a mocking and slightly impressed air. “That will be a fun conversation then, won’t it? See you at home,” he said, the tiniest hint of a threat in his voice, before vanishing in a puff of white smoke.

Najia covered her face with her hands, trying to slow her breathing, and Yaz rushed up and gave her a hug. “Mum, you know Dad isn’t really like that.”

Najia hugged her back. “Fears don’t always have to be rational, you know,” she mumbled. “Besides, I do need to get better at communicating at home. I can sit down and have a hard discussion with my employees and be fine but having a hard conversation with my family is just so much more difficult to instigate.” She gave Yaz a little squeeze and stepped back. “And on that note, I’m sorry I griped at you for not talking to me when I didn’t think to just talk to you, either.”

Yaz laughed. “Well, let’s not worry about that anymore, we won’t make that mistake again,” she said. “And Mum? For what it’s worth, Dad talks about you like you’re his whole universe, even when you’re not around. So I don’t think that conversation is bound to be as difficult as you think.”

“Ladies, I hate to rain on the parade, but we’re going to need to go,” the Doctor interrupted quietly, nodding towards the space ahead of them, where several red-eyed Ood were advancing.

“Yup, time to go,” Yaz agreed quickly, grabbing Najia’s hand and pulling her forward, following the Doctor back into the stairwell and down another flight of stairs. 

“I certainly hope one of you is keeping track of where we are,” Najia told them, “because I am well and truly lost.”

The Doctor nodded. “Easy enough. From here, any of the lowest seven levels have hallways that will take us to the tower where the Amplifier is. We just need to get a clear shot to the tower and we’ll be home free.” She pushed open the door, cautiously leading the way forward. "Besides, I've got the tracker setting turned on on the sonic. Impossible to get lost with that."

It was super eerie, Yaz decided, these hallways looked like they had been through the ringer. The lights were dingy and flickered creepily, the walls had what she assumed was many years worth of grime accumulated on them. How did walls even get grimy, anyway, she wondered? Was it just the atmosphere? Sure, there were no Ood down here, but that only served to make Yaz worry even more. If it wasn’t the possibility of running into Ood, what exactly _was_ her intuition going off about? 

Yaz’s heart raced a little faster, and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to be out of these hallways, out of this building, off this planet. What if she never got to say goodbye to her dad, or- as annoying as Sonya was- her sister? Or Ryan and Graham? Why hadn’t they waited until Ryan and Graham could come too, surely extra help could have been used on this trip? Why had they decided to jump into this adventure alone, helpless… and Najia and the Doctor hadn’t even noticed that something was wrong…

“Guys, I…” Yaz started, bending over to put her hands on her knees for support and trying to catch a breath. For a fleeting second, Yaz wondered if there was carbon monoxide or some other kind of poisonous gas in the atmosphere, why else would she be finding it hard to breathe? The world spun around her and she reached out to one of the filthy walls to avoid falling over.

“Yaz?” Najia asked, reaching out to help her stay upright.

“I just… I don’t…” Yaz tried, but her mouth refused to form the words to explain what was happening. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen. Oh, god, she was going to suffocate here, wasn’t she?? 

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor was asking her questions, but Yaz couldn’t force herself to give any answers.

“You don’t think it’s a panic attack, do you?” Najia asked, worried.

“Dunno, it might be something related to the virus,” the Doctor said. “Yaz, did something happen or did this start on its own?”

Yaz could only shake her head, too focused on trying to breathe and stay upright.

“Well, well, well.” A familiar voice came from behind them, and the three of them glanced up to see none other than Tom, the date that had landed Yaz in the hospital, standing in the middle of the hallway and smirking. “Fancy seeing you here.”

If Yaz could have groaned, she would have. Of course this was just another stupid trick of the virus, she felt like she should have seen that coming, but she felt far too petrified to be able to do anything about it. She struggled for breath and looked up to the Doctor. “Help?” she managed.

“Oh, Yaz,” the Doctor said softly, and she took one of Yaz’s hands in her own. “You can do this. I promise.”

“I thought I wasn’t going to have to see him ever again, not after I saw him at his trial…” Yaz’s voice hitched as another wave of panic surged through her, and she looked wildly over to Najia for support. “I never wanted to see him again!”

“Yaz, listen to me.” The Doctor lifted Yaz’s chin gently so they were eye to eye. “This time, it can’t hurt you unless you let it. You’ve overcome everything that’s happened to you so far, you are _so_ much stronger than you know.”

Fighting back was the last thing Yaz felt capable of, and she let herself be upset over it for a few seconds in her head before she gathered her mental strength to combat it. The Doctor was here, her mum was here… she could do this. 

“I know-“ she started, desperately trying to catch enough breath to talk. “You’re not really Tom,” she told the apparition.

“Of course I am,” the apparition responded with an arrogant laugh. “You can’t possibly have forgotten me after one date. I’m not that forgettable.”

Yaz rolled her eyes and forced herself to stand up straighter. “It makes no sense for Tom to be on this planet.” She coughed, and found that she was able to breathe a little easier. Hope sprung up in her chest- maybe pushing back against it was working. “Just like it didn’t make sense for Dad to be here, either,” she continued. “Next time you want to scare us, try to find something that’s not so easy to see through.”

“Oh, come on,” the fake Tom smirked. “You know I’m only here because you feel guilty.”

“Excuse me?” Yaz asked, confused.

“I’m rotting away in jail now because of you.” He crossed his arms, offering her a nasty smirk. “Your girlfriend over there showed up at my place at 3 am and made me walk halfway across town to turn myself in at your precinct. And then you had to go and ask your coworkers to investigate how many times I’ve drugged people before. If you hadn’t shown up in court to testify they wouldn’t have thrown me in jail.” He stepped forward and put a single finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “I lost my job because of you. I lost my friends, I lost the next year of my life because you couldn’t just live and let live, could you?” He sneered. “You did this to me, you vindictive bitch.”

“You did this to yourself,” Yaz said quietly, willing herself to believe the words. “You know, I really wrestled with it when I heard they were locking you up. Sure, the police officer in me wants you off the street so you can never do this again, but the human part of me hates that I had to be the one that landed you behind bars. I wish I never had to ask for justice, but here we are.”

“Justice? I don’t know, Yaz. Feels more like revenge, from my side of things.”

“Is it really revenge if you deserved it?” 

“It is if you turned me in out of spite.”

Yaz drew herself up to her full height, her fears melting into anger. “Spite? I turned you in to protect whatever poor woman you decided to take out for dinner next. And, yeah, you know what? You deserve some kind of punishment for damn near killing me.”

The fake Tom laughed. “You wouldn’t have nearly died if you weren’t so weak and pathetic in the first place. Some fine police officer you are. Can’t even protect yourself, can you? This whole thing was your fault for being so naïve.”

“Can you just shut up!” Yaz pointed a stern finger at the apparition. “The Doctor said it earlier: it’s not the victim’s fault. It wasn’t _my_ fault. And you’re not real, so I can finally do this without any repercussions whatsoever.” Yaz drew back her fist and punched the apparition in the face, making it dissolve in a puff of white smoke, and whirled back around, eyes blazing. 

Najia was absolutely beaming with pride, and the Doctor was staring at her with an open mouth. Yaz hadn’t realized how _good_ it would feel to give Tom a piece of her mind, to tell him off and put that stupid fear to rest. She felt free. She felt _powerful_. “Let’s go take this thing down,” she said, marching past them and onwards towards the Amplifier.

Najia and the Doctor followed, letting Yaz lead the way. “I didn’t know you’d made him turn himself in,” Najia told the Doctor after a minute.

The Doctor shrugged. “Well someone had to. I was technically a witness, after all.”

“Well, thank you,” Najia said. “Did you really make him walk all the way across town?” she asked with a little laugh.

“Course I did. Wasn’t going to let him in my TARDIS, he doesn’t deserve that. Besides, what were the police going to think when someone shows up to turn himself in raving about a magic box that teleported him across town?” A little glint shone in her eye. “No, I wanted him credible.”

“Smart,” Najia nodded.

They rounded the corner into the last hallway, at the end of which Yaz could see an arched doorway with a set of spiral stairs behind it. “There it is,” she told the others, excitement mounting. They were so close.

“Finally,” the Doctor agreed. “I knew we weren’t lost.”

Yaz grinned at her, ready to take on whatever was waiting for them at the top of the tower. She glanced towards the tower just in time to see the lights in the stairwell blink out.

The Doctor slowed, glancing behind her and then back to the stairwell, as the overhead lights in the hallway just outside the arch blinked out as well. “Oh no,” she breathed. “Oh, no, no, no, this is bad.”

“What? What is it?” Yaz asked, confused.

The Doctor hesitantly took a step backwards as the next lights went dark, too, casting the entire far end of the hallway into darkness, blatant terror clouding her features.

“Doctor! What’s wrong?” Yaz pushed.

“Vashta Nerada,” the Doctor responded tensely, still staring at the darkness. 

Yaz looked at the shadows, confused. She’d never heard of Vashta Nerada, but judging by the Doctor’s absolute panic, it felt much more like another trick. “But…It’s got to be the virus, right?” Yaz asked. “I mean, we’re getting closer to the Amplifier, and Mum and I just had to deal with stuff… of all the fears we’ve confronted here, it would make sense that this is just one more, yeah?”

“If we’re wrong...” the Doctor watched the next light go out, fumbling through her pockets for the sonic and holding it out in front of her, hoping to catch a reading from the distance she was at.

“What’s a Vashta Nerada?” Najia asked, watching her attempt the scan and shake the sonic when it read nothing.

“Carnivorous shadows,” the Doctor answered, pacing back and forth, thinking aloud. “Yaz is right, it’s most likely the virus. Face your fear, forward, it goes away. Run, it strengthens and we’re dead.” She glanced at the shadows, watching another light go out, creeping closer to them. “Or, it could actually be Vashta Nerada. If we go forward, we’re dead. And there’s almost no way we can outrun them, it’s too far and they’re extremely fast when they want to be. We’d have a very small chance of making it back to the TARDIS alive.” She curled her fists in her hair, making it stick between her fingers at odd angles. “Ohh, I hate being put in a trap!” she snarled.

“So, forward, yeah?” Yaz asked. 

“Yaz, you don’t understand. When the president said earlier that even the shadows on this planet were hostile, this is what he was referring to. Vashta Nerada are on every planet in the universe, and if they were here in large enough swarms for the colonists to notice, I guarantee you they haven’t left. Just because it’s more likely that it’s another fear doesn’t mean that it still can’t be real.”

“When you say carnivorous...?” Najia asked.

More lights had winked out, and the shadows were now barely 40 feet away. The Doctor had a thought, and dug in her coat pockets until she found a package of beef jerky that Graham had left on the Tardis console, and the Doctor had been meaning to tease him about leaving his snacks lying about. She pulled a piece of meat from the bag and threw it into the shadow.

It never hit the floor.

“Okay,” The Doctor said, her voice unnaturally high. “More likely real, then.”

“If I get a vote, I say we leave!” Najia was already inching away from the darkness, reaching for Yaz as she backed away.

Yaz shook Najia off and stood her ground. She glanced at the Doctor, who was white as a sheet and pacing like a trapped animal. “Doctor, if this virus works on fear, then it’s got you right where it wants you. This fits the M.O. It wants us to run, so it can take us, right? Forward is the only option where it goes away.”

“Forward is also marching straight into a carnivorous swarm, and if it’s not a bluff, we die. I can’t put you in that kind of danger, Yaz! You really don’t understand how much I can’t do that to you.” She whimpered softly to herself, then spun and took Yaz firmly by the shoulders. “Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do. And no arguments from you.”

“Doctor...” Yaz started.

“No, listen to me! This is my fear, if it is a fear, so it’s on me to get rid of it. I’m going to-“ she faltered briefly. “I’m going to confront it. Alone. If you’re right, we go on. If we’re wrong, and I die, and trust me when I say that won’t be pretty, you and your mum have to get back to the TARDIS as fast as you can. Do not try to help me.” She turned to Najia with a pleading look. “Make sure she gets out of here,” she said desperately.

“You said they were too fast for us to run! I’m coming with you.”

“I said no arguments!” The Doctor snapped. “If they’re real, they’ll be busy with me and that will probably give you just enough extra time to get out.” She pulled out her sonic and pressed it into Yaz’s hands. “Just in case. Use setting 27, it will guide you back the way we came. We’ve only got about three hours until the quarantine kicks in, Yuri and Sudi have enough information to handle the situation from here, you have to get out before the quarantine happens or you’ll be stuck here. Get to the TARDIS as fast as you can. Underneath the hourglass is an emergency recall, press it and it will take you back to Sheffield.” Another light blinked out, bringing the shadows within mere feet of them, and the Doctor squeezed Yaz’s hands, Yaz could feel her trembling with fear. “I’m so sorry for bringing you here, and I love you, and we had the best of times.” 

Yaz opened her mouth to protest again, or say anything at all, but the words stuck in her throat. The Doctor released her hands, turned and stepped up to the line where the darkness met the light. 

She took a deep breath and disobeyed every cell in her body screaming for her to run, and stepped into the shadows.


	10. The Amplifier

“Doctor!” Yaz yelled as she watched the black swarm envelop her, the Doctor’s high cry of pain ringing through the hallway. Yaz hesitated for a split second that felt like several eternities, torn between obeying the Doctor and getting her mum back to the TARDIS, or fighting her way forward to offer the Doctor whatever help she could. In the fraction of a second it took her to decide to try to help, the lights blinked back on, and the swarm vanished like it had never existed. Yaz ran to the crumpled figure on the floor, hoping against hope that she was still alive.

“Doctor?” she asked hesitantly, reaching down to brush blonde hair aside.

The Doctor sprang up suddenly, wildly, her hands out in front of her and an expression of utter shock on her face. “I’m alive,” she realized, glancing up at Yaz and suddenly breaking into an almost manic grin. “Didn’t see that coming,” she exclaimed, suddenly wrapping Yaz in a bear hug that quite literally took her breath away. “Can’t believe I’m alive. Love it when I do that.” 

She suddenly seemed to realize what she was doing and released Yaz somewhat awkwardly, scrambled to her feet and took off towards the end of the tunnel, leaving Yaz and Najia staring after her. “Alright you lot. Let’s get on with this and get off this planet.”

Yaz and Najia exchanged a bewildered expression. “Are you sure you’re alright?” Najia asked as they followed.

“Who, me? I’m always alright,” the Doctor answered evasively, darting up the stairs. “Still have all my limbs and everything. I’m absolutely sorted.” 

Yaz had to resist the urge to roll her eyes as she followed the Doctor up the stairs. There was an awful lot they were going to have to discuss when they finally got back to the TARDIS. And the longer Yaz trudged up the stairs, the more she was wondering if she’d heard the Doctor correctly just before she’d stepped into the shadows. She’d actually said she loved her, hadn’t she? Now she was barely making eye contact, but was it because of what she’d said or something else? The frustration burned into Yaz’s mind as strongly as hiking up a neverending staircase was burning her lungs, and it only served to make Yaz more determined to corner her and ask her about it before the day was over.

What felt like several million stairs later, they reached the top of the tower where the Amplifier was housed. All three of them were gasping for breath, nearly dragging themselves up by the handrail by the time they reached the top.

“Don’t they have lifts in the 84th century?” Najia panted.

“You’d think,” Yaz grumbled in return, staring at the Amplifier in front of them.

It was probably seven or eight feet in diameter, a large glass dome set inside what Yaz might have mistaken for a knee-high swimming pool if she didn’t know any better. The top of the dome was about at her eye level, she could just see over it to the other side of the tower- large, open arches that gave a 360 degree view of the planet below. She watched as a swirling, red cloud floated in and spread itself across the dome, slowly sinking into the glass, and a black, writhing mass inside the dome squirmed its way upward to welcome the cloud, wriggling like a nest of cockroaches.

“This is disgusting,” Najia peered down into the glass, her face a mask of revulsion.

Yaz looked over at the Doctor, who was examining the Amplifier with a similarly disgusted expression. “What do you think is the deal with the red clouds?” she asked, watching the mass inside the dome wriggle faster as the glass absorbed the smoky substance.

The Doctor watched it for a minute. “If I had to guess… Hvordin gets stronger as you succumb to the fears it induces. It feeds on adrenaline. I don’t know the exact science behind the Amplifier, but I’m guessing that it’s cranked up high enough that it’s reabsorbing the psychic energy it gave off as people are falling victim to it. Which means we'll want to be quick, before any more people have to die.” She squatted down by the control panel, gently tracing the mashed in buttons and broken off switches that had been damaged by the Ood. “And we won’t be able to turn down the intensity, this is completely broken. We really are going to have to do this exactly right.” She gave them a grim look.

“Alright, then, let’s go over it one more time before we do it,” Yaz decided.

The Doctor stood up and nodded. “Looks like the main power supply is here,” she said, gently brushing her fingertips over a large cable that led through a giant metal plate on the wall. “Should be able to pull it straight out of the Amplifier itself, once the sides are unclipped. And here…” she traced another cable to a trapdoor in the floor, lifting up the door to reveal the generator, “is the backup. Should be able to disconnect it here,” she pointed. 

“So, what, on the count of three?” Najia asked.

The Doctor nodded. “If you like. I’ll have to shield it so the virus doesn’t get out. So I’ll give you the signal, you do whatever you need to do to pull the plugs at exactly the same moment.” She frowned at the Amplifier again. 

“Count of three, then,” Yaz told Najia, positioning herself by the main power source and unclipping the safeguards. Najia nodded and stood over the generator.

The Doctor stepped up to the dome, looking down into the writhing mass and taking one last second to see if she could think of any other way to do this. The Amplifier was a lot bigger and by the looks of it, stronger than she had anticipated, and she was regretting coming up with this specific plan. But there was no other way she could think of, especially now that they’d come this far, but at least this way might give her time to regenerate if it all went south, she supposed. She reached out and touched the glass.

Her mind immediately lit on fire with the screams and gunfire of war, her family and people and planet burning alive. She yanked her hand back involuntarily with a yelp, and the assault stopped.

“Doctor?” Yaz asked, concerned.

“S’alright,” she mumbled, glaring at her hand and turning back to the Amplifier. “This is just going to be a lot more unpleasant than I anticipated.” With a final glance at Yaz to make sure they were all ready, she placed her hands on the dome again. 

Adric’s ship was hurtling towards Earth and there was nothing he could do about it, and River was in tears, strapped into the chair that would kill her, and her planet was still burning and she was so over this war, so tired. Rose’s fingers were slipping and she was so close to falling into the void, and he was singing a tiny Susan an old Gallifreyan lullaby just before Susan was begging to be let back into the TARDIS, Bill’s heartbroken yet emotionless “I waited for you,” cyber voice. Clara’s countdown couldn’t be stopped, Grace was dead before she even knew anything was wrong, Wilf knocked on the glass four times to be saved, Astrid was falling, she had stranded her new friends on a planet called Desolation and the TARDIS was nowhere to be found, he was the Time Lord Victorious and the fixed point was broken and there was no one to stop him…

Enough was enough. Slowly, carefully, she pushed back against the onslaught, shutting down her worst memories and forcing calm into the chaos. With the greatest effort, she used the calm as a shield, until finally, for the briefest of seconds, all the noise was forced into the Amplifier, like a balloon about to pop. She barely managed to make eye contact with Yaz, and dimly she heard Yaz’s voice and the Amplifier powered down with a disturbing crackle. The writhing mass inside pressed desperately against the glass, against her hands, against her mind, but she held it at bay as it slowly died inside the dome, gradually resisting less and less until it was gone.

The Doctor let herself slump to the ground, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, feeling more like she had just been electrocuted than anything else. She became vaguely aware of Yaz and Najia’s presence, heard them talking to her even if she was too exhausted to make out the specifics of what they were saying.

“I’ll be fine, just give me a minute,” she told them wearily, rubbing her face and glancing up for a minute to see them exchange a worried glance, and realized she’d spoken in Gallifreyan. She searched her brain for the right words in English and repeated herself when she’d collected enough brainpower to do so.

“Take your time,” Najia told her, sitting on the floor next to her and gently rubbing circles on her back. It struck the Doctor out of nowhere how parental the gesture was, how very long it had been since anyone had acted like a proper parent towards her, and it threatened to choke her up. The Doctor pressed her hands back into her eyes to hide the emotions, waiting until she was absolutely sure she had her strength and wits about her before she made another move.

“Do you hear that?” Yaz asked after a minute, looking around in confusion.

The Doctor looked up, trying to determine what Yaz was asking about.

“Yeah, I do,” Najia responded with a frown, her hand stilling on the Doctor’s back.

It was just the distraction the Doctor was looking for, and she focused her attention on whatever her friends were hearing- and she suddenly heard it too. Music, like a choir of voices, rising and falling and drifting up into the tower. The Doctor took Yaz’s hands. “Help me up,” she asked, letting Yaz wrap an arm around her waist as they stumbled over to one of the arches that overlooked the city.

“Oh!” Yaz exclaimed, looking down on the rows of buildings. Ood were stepping out into the streets, arms uplifted, singing an ethereal song in a language none of the three women in the tower could understand. 

They stood in the archway, watching the scene unfold beneath them. “Well, I guess we don’t have to wonder if it worked,” the Doctor said aloud after a minute. “If the Ood are happy, at least for now, we know the virus stayed contained in the Amplifier.” 

Yaz grinned. “So it worked.”

The Doctor grinned back. “It worked,” she said, suddenly stifling a yawn. “Ugh. I’m going to need a serious nap when we get back,” she joked.

Yaz threaded one of her arms through the Doctor’s, offering her as much support as she would take. “Are you really sure you’re alright?” Yaz asked again. 

The Doctor nodded. “Definitely.” She grinned. “Just need a cup of tea and some biscuits and I’ll be good as new.”

Yaz laughed as the three of them turned away from the archway and made their way back down the tower stairs. “Do you ever actually eat any real food?”

“Course I do!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Do you know, I cooked my way through Julia Child’s entire cookbook once. Had to have something to do with all my free time at the university.” She launched into a lengthy explanation about how to avoid burning escargot, which apparently the TARDIS was still unhappy with her about.

They made their way back through the hallways and stairwells, the return journey seeming much shorter than the way there- which Yaz wasn’t sure if she attributed to the fact that she now had a general idea of where they were, or because the Doctor’s ridiculous story was keeping them entertained during their walk. The air seemed to grow lighter and lights seemed brighter as they made their way to the upper levels of the building, and the Doctor groaned when they reached the last set of stairs that would take them up into the hallway where the President’s office was.

“If I never see another flight of stairs, it’ll be too soon,” the Doctor grumbled, finally releasing Yaz’s arm and stomping up the stairs as if by doing so she was teaching them a lesson. 

“Seriously,” Najia agreed. “Why no lifts? Do they outlaw them in the 60th century or something?” she asked dryly.

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” the Doctor replied, emerging into the hallway near the President’s office.

Sudi was sitting on the floor just outside the office, hugging Mickey to her chest and swiping at her eyes with a tissue. “Sudi, what’s wrong?” Yaz asked as they approached, kneeling down by Sudi.

She sniffed. “The President got a call from the Intergalactic Health Organization, he’s in there talking to them now. They found out about the virus and they’re going to incinerate us.”


	11. Countdown

“Hold your fire!” The Doctor commanded, throwing open the doors to the office and marching in, Yaz and Najia right behind her. Yuri and the woman on the video projection startled at the sudden intrusion, and the Doctor came to stand beside Yuri, crossing her arms and glaring at the blank wall with the video projected on it. “You _will not_ launch a weapon until you’ve heard from us first.”

The video projection carried the image of a dark-skinned woman wearing a headset, superimposed with “Aliah Moore, IHO Director” and a timer counting down, already at fourteen and a half minutes. Aliah sighed, brushing aside a strand of braided hair as she took in the newcomer. “I’m sorry, who is this?” she asked, the question directed at Yuri.

“I’ve been telling you, she’s been conducting an investigation, she caught the virus even before you did. She’s been helping us take care of it, you did take care of it, right?” he pleaded, turning to the Doctor. “We don’t need to be incinerated.”

“He’s right, it’s all taken care of.” the Doctor eyed the countdown timer in the corner of the screen. “Turn off the countdown until we’ve finished speaking, please.” 

“I cannot do that until we have reason to believe that there is no danger posed by the Hvordin virus we detected on the planet. As contagious as it is, the IHO can’t risk it getting off Andratx and spreading to the rest of the solar system. It seems the infestation is too great to take any preventative or maintenance action, so incineration is the recommended procedure,” Aliah explained, her professional demeanor only wavering in sympathy at the very end.

The Doctor gritted her teeth in frustration. “There is no danger! The virus was contained in the Amplifier, which has been turned off. Surely Yuri mentioned? Don’t you have an Amplifier blueprint, or a manual, or something? You can see there’s no danger once it’s been turned off. Or, even better, scan the planet again!”

Aliah’s eyes flicked to a corner of her screen as she typed quickly. “I’ve pinged a few colleagues to work on this, too, we’re just requesting access to the blueprints now.”

“Can you really not turn off the launch until you have that information? This is an awfully big decision to make before you have all the facts.” The Doctor glanced around the room, looking for ideas, trying to formulate a plan, but the only thing of note in the office was Yuri, grim-faced and gripping the edge of his desk with white knuckles. She calculated, quickly, how far the TARDIS was and how quickly she could get to it if she had to, whether or not she had enough time to get there and land at the IHO before the timer ran out.

“As I said, if I do that, I’m going to have to justify the delay of the launch to my boss. Just give me a moment.”

“Your justification is avoiding the needless deaths of the seven million people on this planet! Are you willing to be responsible for that?” Aliah paused for a moment, and the Doctor kept talking. “Do you want to know what it’s like to live with the knowledge, for the rest of your life, that you took seven million innocent lives? Do you think you can ever escape that kind of guilt?”

The woman paused. “Ma’am…”

“No, listen to me! I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Every time you walk into a quiet room you’re going to hear them screaming as they burn in the back of your head. Every time you see a child walking down the street you’re going to think of the thousands of children on this planet that are never going to get to grow up, and you’re going to wonder if you could ever take a life again so easily, and it’s going to scare you to death. You can’t kill people ‘just in case’. These people deserve more, Aliah, they deserve a chance, they are so much more than just disposable lives that you can exterminate as a precaution. Please, stop the countdown.”

Aliah bit her lip, uncertainty etched into her face. She hit a button and the countdown paused with thirteen minutes to go. 

The Doctor sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

“I can only delay it for a few minutes while we get the facts. I’ve got the blueprints now, and I’ve requested a secondary scan of the planet. Tell me what’s happened.” Aliah stared at the corner of her screen, fingers flying over the keyboard in front of her as she multitasked.

Yaz watched nervously as the Doctor explained how the virus had managed to infect the Amplifier, how the Ood had tried to turn it off but managed to worsen the situation, how it had affected the people on the planet, and how they’d disconnected it while keeping the virus contained. The woman was nodding and typing faster than Yaz had seen anyone type before in her life. 

“I see, I see. Right. Let me make a recommendation-“ Aliah’s voice was suddenly cut off, the image on the screen switched to a bored looking man leaning back in his chair, and the countdown started back up. 

“No, wait, hold on! Turn that countdown off, now!” the Doctor demanded.

“Calm down, honey, there’s no need to get hysterical,” he told the Doctor, and Yaz could see her entire demeanor shift. She wondered briefly if this man had any idea what kind of mistake he’d just made. 

“You’re about to order the slaughter of seven million people and _I’m_ the one overreacting?” The Doctor’s quiet, icy tone held a note of barely restrained fury that sent shivers down Yaz’s spine. 

“I’m the Director-General of IHO. This is my decision.” He waved a hand dismissively. “We’re not risking an infection spreading to the rest of the galaxy.”

“And do you have all the information I just gave Aliah?” 

“Yes, honey, I do. We’re proceeding with incineration, which is standard procedure for this type of virus.”

“Let me make this quite plain.” The Doctor was stock-still, staring down the projection with the icy stillness of a coiled snake. “You will not be going forward with incineration. This planet and its people are under my protection. This is your one chance to make the right decision on your own.” 

The man cocked an eyebrow and gave her a condescending look. 

“And if you choose incorrectly, I will wipe even your memory from this galaxy.”

The man leaned forward, a little smirk on his face, as though he was humoring her. “I see. Who do you think you are, making these kinds of threats to me?”

“I’m the Doctor. You may want to take a moment to look me up.”

The man rolled his eyes and shook his head, and he opened his mouth to say something when his eyes flickered to the corner of his screen, reading a message that had apparently just popped up. After a moment his smirk faded and he sat up a little straighter. “Ah.” He hit a key on his keyboard and the countdown stopped again.

The Doctor’s lips curled up into a smile, exposing her teeth.

The man squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, his tone suddenly becoming very polite. “And what alternative action would you propose?”

“Quarantine.” The Doctor began moving about the room again, her predatory demeanor falling away suddenly. “I’ve got the equipment on my ship, I can impose it myself. And I and my friends will take an antiviral before we get back home, so we won’t be able to spread it either.”

The man frowned. “And if you’re wrong, and it wasn’t contained?”

“Then tell me how long of a quarantine you’ll recommend, and you can come do an inspection with me before I lift the quarantine.”

The man had a bitter look on his face, like he’d just bit into a lemon. “Fine.” He typed rapidly on the keyboard in front of him. “If you can commit to a two-year quarantine, the incineration will be cancelled.”

“Whatever we need to do, anything,” Yuri agreed immediately, the relief in his voice palpable.

“Fine. You have two hours to enact the quarantine.” The screen went black without so much as a goodbye, and everyone in the room seemed to let out a collective sigh. 

The president sagged against his desk in relief. “Thank you, thank you so much,” he turned to the Doctor. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

The Doctor turned to him with a serious look. “Yuri, I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully. You have an incredible chance to bring your people together over this. They’ve just been through a lot, and nothing unites a population like overcoming something big. You need to let them know that you have the situation under control. Urge them to work together, to watch out for the signs of the virus, to help each other in the wake of the Amplifier’s destruction. They can get through this together, without the Amplifier, if they rely on each other, and you have to be the leader that brings them together. You have to be the bigger person, you have to set your own fears aside and unite these people. Can you do that?”

Yuri sucked in a deep breath through his teeth, nodding hesitantly. “I think so,” he said, looking overwhelmed. “I never thought I’d have to deal with something like this. Do you have any idea how stressful it is being the president of a whole planet in the first place?” he muttered, rubbing his face with his hands.

The corners of the Doctor’s mouth quirked upward. “I do have an idea,” she replied. “Now. I don’t have nearly enough antiviral on my ship to supply the whole planet, but I have enough that I can give you a few doses. You’ll want to put together a team to reverse engineer it and make more.”

Yuri nodded, pulling out pen and paper and scribbling some notes to himself. “That would be amazing. Thank you.”

“I only have one condition,” the Doctor warned him. “You need to take care of the Ood just like you would your human citizens. I’ll be back to lift the quarantine, I want to see them granted full rights and citizenship. No more slavery.”

Yuri nodded easily this time. “I was thinking about that while you three were turning off the Amplifier. I have several ideas to benefit the Ood,” he told her earnestly, the beginnings of a smile on his face.

“Good.” She returned his smile and turned to her friends as he scribbled notes to himself on his paper. Najia was at the office doors, sharing the good news with a tearful Sudi, and the Doctor came around the side of the desk to meet Yaz, trying to shake off the tension that still lingered in her shoulders. “Two thousand years and I’ve never been called ‘honey’ before,” she admitted under her breath.

Yaz snorted. “Yeah, well, welcome to being a woman.” She gave the Doctor an assessing look, wondering if it would be too weird to give her a hug. She finally settled on just awkwardly placing a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Who, me?” the Doctor asked, placing her hand over Yaz’s. “I’m always okay, I’m the king of okay.” She made a face. “I have got to stop saying that, it’s awful.” 

Yaz laughed, and the Doctor quickly pulled her hand away when she saw Najia turning to them.  
“Come on,” she told Yaz, already starting for the doors. “Let’s go grab that antiviral out of the TARDIS. We’re running out of time before we have to have the quarantine in place.”

With a quick word to Sudi to let the president know they’d be right back, the three of them quickly made their way back out of City Hall, through the neighborhoods, and across the empty field to the TARDIS. The ship whirred as they entered, and the Doctor left Yaz and Najia by the console while she sprinted to the medbay to get what she needed.

The ship gave a couple of beeps and a large screen popped to life above Yaz and Najia’s heads. “It must be a live broadcast,” Yaz said as Yuri’s face filled the screen. 

“Good afternoon,” Yuri started on the screen, his voice steady, betraying no hint of the wild fear he’d displayed earlier that day. “Thank you for tuning in across the planet to this emergency broadcast. I want to address all of our citizens and put your fears to rest.”

The Doctor popped her head back into the console room, arms full of vials. “Did the TARDIS turn that on?” she asked, dumping them into a pile on the floor.

“Just now,” Najia replied with a nod.

The Doctor watched the screen and began sorting the vials while the broadcast continued. “Many of you may have received notifications on your phones and devices from the Intergalactic Health Organization regarding drastic action to stop the spread of the Hvordin virus into the galaxy. Please be aware, first and foremost, that they have suspended their plan of action and our planet is safe.” He paused and shuffled the papers in front of him, calmly explaining what had happened with the Amplifier and how the situation had been dealt with, explaining the plans for quarantine, calling for unity as they entered the new time in their history with the Ood by their side as full citizens.

“I never would have thought he was that good at public speaking,” Najia mused aloud as the Doctor stuffed the vials she needed in her pockets and set the TARDIS to make a quick hop to land just outside City Hall. 

The Doctor smiled at the screen as the broadcast ended. “I have a feeling the people of this planet will be just fine, in the end,” she told them. “C’mon. Let’s go give them the antiviral.”


	12. Andromeda

The Doctor flipped a bunch of switches, pressed a bunch of buttons, and pulled an odd metal contraption full of circles from underneath the console and moved the circles in patterns, using movements similar to a DJ on a turntable. Gold Gallifreyan text spiraled up onto a screen in front of her, and Yaz wondered if it was some kind of alien typewriter or keyboard. “Alright, quarantine, two years,” the Doctor muttered under her breath. “Should have known it was me. It’s almost usually me.” She looked over all the settings before pressing a big green button.

The whole ship shook with the force of the quarantine, and they watched on the screen as what looked like a giant, translucent bubble erupted from the Tardis and settled peacefully over the planet, like a shimmery protective blanket. The three ladies watched for a moment, and the Doctor finally broke the silence. “Well. That’s all in order, then.” She scribbled a few circles on a notepad and attached it to a device near the motion lever. “Leave myself a note to go undo it later. Normally I’d just go ahead and pop forward a few years and remove the quarantine, but there’s bound to be drama with that and I think we could all use a nap. And maybe a biscuit.”

Yaz laughed. “You think every time is a good time for a biscuit.”

The Doctor grinned. “Well it is.” She spun a few knobs on the console and muttered something in Gallifreyan to the TARDIS, and the machine went through its usual protests before landing. “Right,” the Doctor scrunched her nose as she looked at the console. “I’ve got us parked just outside the Andromeda galaxy, why don’t we have that antiviral before we head home?”

“We’re where?” Najia asked, slightly stunned.

“Can we look?” Yaz asked, already heading for the doors.

The Doctor laughed. “Course you can.”

Yaz flung open the doors, Najia right behind her, to the sight of a million twinkling stars dancing around each other in a swirling disc, tiny points of light glittering in the dark. Yaz’s jaw dropped at the sight. 

“Oh,” was all Najia could say, watching the galaxy in front of her.

After a few minutes of stunned silence, Yaz sat down in the center of the open doors and let her legs dangle out of the Tardis, prompting a “Careful!” exclamation from her mum.

Yaz laughed. “Gravity shields, Mum. Couldn’t fall out if I tried.” She patted the floor next to her, and Najia sat, not quite able to tear her eyes away from the sights in front of her. “Isn’t it amazing?” Yaz asked her after a minute.

Najia shook her head. “It’s…” she trailed off as she realized she couldn’t even find the right words. “It looks like you could step out onto it from here, but then you realize that those are stars, and how far away they are from each other… doesn’t it make you feel tiny?” Yaz nodded, and Najia gave a dreamy sort of sigh. “Couldn’t you just get completely addicted to this?”

“Yeah, I think I have,” Yaz agreed softly.

“How could you not?” Najia asked, wrapping her arms around her daughter and watching the galaxy twinkle.

The Doctor appeared after a few minutes, carrying a tray with three shot glasses of an oozy black liquid, three mugs of tea, and a large pile of biscuits. She carefully set the tray down and sat on the other side of Yaz, then reached behind them and handed out the shot glasses. “Best do it quickly, that antiviral is nasty stuff.”

Najia eyed her shot glass warily. “Europa Olympics 4040?” she read. “Where did you get these?” she asked, as though she thought they might have come from a joke shop.

“The Europa Olympics in 4040,” the Doctor responded with a grin. “The dressage gold medalist was completely bogus, though.”

“Hmm, did you lose?” Yaz asked.

“Disqualified, just because I could talk to the horse! Completely unfair.” The Doctor tossed her shot back and made a face, already reaching for a biscuit. “They also didn’t like my bowtie, said it wasn’t an appropriate look for the uniform, which was ridiculous. It was a very cool bowtie.”

Yaz chuckled to herself as she took her own shot, and nearly gagged. “God, that’s awful.”

The Doctor side-eyed her. “What’s everyone got against bowties?”

Najia finished hers and bit into a biscuit too. “Well, if there’s one thing I didn’t anticipate doing today, this was it. Shots and biscuits in outer space.” She shook her head. “I can see why you love to travel like this,” she told the Doctor. “It’s just incredible.”

The Doctor nodded and wrapped her hands around a mug of tea. “Definitely beats hanging out on a planet your whole life.”

“Well, most people don’t really get the option,” Najia laughed. “I never would have thought I’d get to see something like this. It’s so much bigger than I imagined.”

“About 110,000 light years across,” the Doctor replied. “We’re actually parked about that distance away from it, so you can see the whole thing. And over there…” she glanced around, getting her bearings, then pointed to a smallish galaxy in the distance, “That’s the Milky Way.”

“You’re joking,” Najia replied.

“Nope.”

“That’s home?”

The Doctor just grinned and ate another biscuit.

Yaz glanced at the Doctor, silently asking a question before turning to Najia. “Why don’t you stay with us for a bit? There’s loads to see,” she said.

Najia smiled. “As lovely as that sounds, I do have another daughter and a husband who will certainly kill her with his cooking if I leave them alone for too long.”

“It _is_ a time machine,” the Doctor added.

Najia laughed. “That may be true, but I really shouldn’t be off gallivanting around the universe.” She gave Yaz a playful nudge with her elbow. “But you two should definitely go have fun. Be safe, I expect my daughter back in one piece,” she told the Doctor, “but this is just too incredible for you to miss out on.”

Yaz grinned and hugged Najia, and the Doctor suddenly jumped. “Oh! I have an idea. You both have your phones?”

They dug their phones out of their pockets, and the Doctor unlocked Yaz’s and quickly tapped through a few settings, then waved it in the air trying to catch a signal from the TARDIS. “You don’t even let me have the passcode on your phone,” Najia teased Yaz as the Doctor made a few adjustments and handed it back, then did the same to Najia’s.

“Shut up, Mum,” Yaz mumbled, but she was smiling.

“There we are! Now you two can call each other from any time, any place. Mind the roaming charges, though,” the Doctor winked at Najia.

“Seriously? Even without a cell tower?” Najia asked.

“Go on, call someone,” the Doctor replied around a mouthful of biscuit.

Najia tapped through the settings until she found her husband’s contact info, and hit the call button. She laughed aloud when he answered. “It actually works!” she exclaimed. “Hakim, where are you right now? What are you doing?...Yeah, I’m with Yaz…. Oh, just, you know, stargazing…”

“That’s an understatement,” Yaz laughed. “Thanks,” she told the Doctor, who grinned back.

“Course.” 

Yaz wrapped her hands around the warm mug, thinking about the adventure they’d just left behind. “What do you suppose is going to happen to the Ood?” she asked after a moment.

“Hmm.” The Doctor carefully swallowed a sip of hot tea before speaking. “If I remember the future correctly- and granted, I never seem to remember things in the proper order- I think Yuri creates a section of the city that replicates their planet as closely as they can. The Ood are granted citizenship and get the choice to live there and build their own community, with their own species, or stay with the homes they’re in now, but granted rights and salary.” She paused. “It’s far from ideal, but given the circumstances… the quarantine and the virus, and the fact that they’re all cut up and processed and domesticated… you can’t just release them into the wild now. That’d be like releasing a pet dog into the wild when you’re tired of caring for it.” She swung her feet slowly as her legs dangled out the open doors. “We’ll have to see how it shakes down when we go lift the quarantine. They certainly deserve better,” she said wistfully.

The three women watched the stars twinkle until their tea was gone and their legs were stiff from sitting, and the Doctor helped them up before setting the TARDIS in motion once more. 

The TARDIS landed in Sheffield without incident, and Najia stepped out into the sunlight, Yaz right behind her. “It looks just the same as when we left,” she said, awed.

“We’ve only been gone about twenty minutes,” the Doctor replied, leaning against the door frame and stifling a yawn. “Our tea from earlier’s probably not even cold yet.”

Najia turned to the Doctor. “Why don’t you come back inside with us? Have a proper dinner, sleep on a real bed. Not that your ship isn’t lovely, but I’m sure sleeping on a ship isn’t nearly as comfortable as a real bed would be.”

“Oi, it’s very comfortable! Finest quality bunk beds, you know.”

Najia laughed. “I insist. Come on.”


	13. Starlight

Consciousness eased back into the Doctor’s brain slowly, quietly, as if not to disturb her when she was so incredibly warm and comfortable. She pulled the plush blanket up to her chin and nestled down into the pillow even further, a pillow that smelled vaguely sweet and floral and reminded her strongly of Yaz.

Yaz. The thought woke her up completely, and she squinted around at her surroundings, taking in the clutter and sights of Yaz’s room. Sunlight peeked in around the closed blinds, and the flat was quiet, save for the muffled thumps of the footsteps of the upstairs neighbors. 

The message on the psychic paper. Andratx. The Amplifier, the Ood, Yaz and Najia at Andromeda. The delicious lentil dal Najia had made for dinner, that was just a hair spicier than the Doctor was anticipating- not that she let on, of course. The events of the previous day returned to the Doctor in whatever order they chose, and she sat up, stretching her arms and suddenly feeling very out of place in Yaz’s room alone. She kicked off the blankets and located her shoes near the bedroom door, pulling them on and stepping out into the living room.

Sonya was sprawled out across the sofa, holding her phone above her face and holding her features very carefully just so as the filter worked its magic. She had just snapped a quality picture when she noticed the Doctor emerging from the hallway, looking thoroughly bewildered. “Oh, hey,” Sonya greeted her.

“Hi,” the Doctor gave her a little wave as Sonya sat up with a giant knowing grin.

“Sooooo,” Sonya drew out the word. “You and my sister, huh?”

“I… guess?” the Doctor replied, unsure exactly what Sonya was referring to. “Er… where did everyone go?”

“Mum’s out doing the shopping, Yaz and Dad are both at work. You’ve been sleeping for like, a whole day,” Sonya told her. “Which is kind of impressive. Even I can’t sleep that late. Guess it would be easier if Mum would let me, but still.” She shrugged. 

“Right, yeah. Makes sense.” The Doctor stuffed her hands into her trouser pockets, unsure if she should excuse herself or not, and instead of making a move just sort of stood there awkwardly for a second.

“So, look.” Sonya locked her phone and and propped her feet up on the coffee table, leaning back and crossing her arms. “Yaz really likes you. Which is weird, because she doesn’t like anyone, so just, like, be cool with her, okay?”

The Doctor grinned. “I can be cool. I’m always cool.”

Sonya mustered up a thoroughly withering look. “No, you’re not. I mean what are you even wearing?? I mean, ugh, ok, no offense, but you’re kind of weird, which is fine I guess, if Yaz likes it. But she’s kind of been through enough, and you can’t be weird with her. Okay?”

The Doctor tilted her head, trying to understand what Sonya was getting at. “You want to make sure I won’t hurt her, is that it?” she asked softly. “Can I ask… do you feel guilty for setting her up with Tom?”

Sonya shrugged, but stared at the floor. “I guess, a bit.”

The Doctor nodded, waiting to see if she was going to continue.

“I mean I’d only hung out with him in groups a couple times, he seemed cool. And Yaz is always just hanging around here, she never does anything fun, so I just thought…” Sonya trailed off and shrugged again.

The Doctor sat on the arm of the couch, facing towards Sonya. “You know you’re not responsible for what he chose to do, right?”

Sonya shrugged yet again. “I didn’t know he was like that. He didn’t seem creepy or anything when I met him. I didn’t think he was gonna… you know.” 

“I know,” the Doctor told her. “You couldn’t have known that beforehand. You were just trying to do something nice for your sister, but it wasn’t your fault it didn’t go the way you wanted it to. You can’t blame yourself what he did.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sonya uncrossed her arms, but she looked like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “You sound just like Mum. How old are you, anyway?”

“Oh, somewhere between a few thousand and a few billion years old.” The Doctor grinned.

Sonya gave her a withering look again and picked her phone back up. “See? Weird.” 

The Doctor chuckled, standing up and grabbing her coat off the dining room chair where it was draped. “Alright, well, I’m going to go be weird back at my place for a bit. I’ll come by later if I don’t see Yaz first.”

Sonya unlocked her phone. “Okay, have fun being weird with my sister.” 

*** 

The TARDIS was parked right where it had been when Yaz had walked by it on her way to and from work, and Yaz assumed that the Doctor was most likely tinkering around with something inside, based on what Sonya had said. She approached and went to unlock the doors, but they swung open at her touch in a sort of welcome. Yaz smiled. This odd blue box felt as much like home to her as her flat did, had felt like home from the moment she had first stepped inside it. She wondered how it was that just a few weeks ago she’d been terrified at the thought of where it might take her.

She stepped inside and let the doors close behind her, glancing around the console room for any sign of the Doctor. The TARDIS was glowing brightly and the Doctor’s silver coat was draped over a knob on the console, so Yaz knew she was somewhere within the ship. Yaz snuck a biscuit from the dispenser and curiously strode down one of the many hallways.

The library was dark, the bedrooms were empty, the workshop was scattered with odd mechanical bits and tools, but no sign of the Doctor. Yaz was starting to feel like she was walking in a circular maze when she heard a soft strain of music coming from somewhere nearby.

“Doctor?” she asked, following the sound until she reached the kitchen, and stopped in the doorway. The Doctor was sitting on a countertop, legs dangling and blonde hair hanging in her face, plucking out an ethereal melody on an old banged-up guitar and singing along softly in a language Yaz couldn’t understand, her voice clear and almost angelic. A forgotten mug of tea sat on the counter next to her, and every now and again she would start a phrase over as she plucked the wrong string and tried again. 

Yaz stood silently in the doorway, absolutely captivated by both the woman and the song. 

It wasn’t until several minutes later that the Doctor looked up for a split second to tune a string and caught the figure in her doorway out of the corner of her eye, nearly dropping the guitar as she yelped in surprise. “It’s just me!” Yaz stepped into the light of the kitchen with her hands in the air.

“Yaz! You scared me half to death,” the Doctor grumbled. 

“Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt you,” Yaz explained, coming up next to her and hoisting herself on the counter next to her friend, sitting just close enough that they were almost touching. “That song was beautiful, I didn’t know you played.”

“Oh, I used to play all the time. I was better at it then, it’s harder now my hands are smaller.” She stretched the aching fingers of her left hand. “Can’t believe I still have this thing, actually. I figured the TARDIS chucked it out when she chucked me out. Needed a few strings replaced but it still works.”

“What was it you were playing?”

“Hmm? Oh, just an old lullaby from Gallifrey. Got it stuck in my head back on Andratx, thinking about home.”

“It’s beautiful. Could I hear it again sometime?” 

The Doctor smiled. “Definitely. But it’ll have to be another time, these hands aren’t used to playing. Kind of hurts, actually,” she said as she stood the guitar on the floor, leaning it up against the counter by her feet. “How’s your mum? We didn’t terrify her too badly, did we?”

Yaz laughed. “I’m sure her recollection of it will depend heavily on whether she remembers being chased by our greatest fears or seeing her favorite galaxy up close and in person.” 

“I’m sure you’re right,” the Doctor grinned.

Yaz grinned back. “You’ll probably be wanting this back,” she said, and pulled the sonic out of her jacket pocket and handed it to the Doctor.

“Ohhh! My sonic! I forgot all about that. Thanks, Yaz!” The Doctor hopped off the counter and slipped the sonic in the pocket of her trousers, noticing her forgotten mug next to where she’d been sitting. “Oh, I had tea. Do you want some tea?”

“Sure.” Yaz watched the Doctor busy herself with the kettle. “Can I ask you something?” she asked after a minute.

“Always.”

Yaz paused, wrestling with how to phrase what she wanted to know. “Why’d you give me your sonic?”

“Well, you might’ve needed it.” The Doctor readied Yaz’s mug as she spoke.

“That’s not what I mean, Doctor,” Yaz leaned forward and paused. “That was just a precaution, right?”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“You knew the Vashta Nerada was a bluff, didn’t you?” Yaz decided on a more direct route to what she wanted to know. “I mean, yeah, they could have been real, but you knew, right?”

The Doctor glanced up for a second, searching for the words, but her look told Yaz everything she needed to know. 

“Oh, god,” Yaz realized, horrified, and she slid off the counter too. “You were really saying goodbye.”

“Yaz-“ the Doctor started.

“You were really thinking you were going to die in there! But you said…” Yaz felt like she was going to choke on the words. “You were actually going to just let it kill you and leave me there without you?”

“Already told you,” the Doctor said quietly. “Can’t have a universe with no Yaz.” 

Yaz stared at her for a second, not sure what to do with that information. “But not at your expense!”

The Doctor frowned, confused. “Are you actually upset that I didn’t let you follow me to your potential death?”

Yaz huffed in irritation. “No! Well, yeah, I mean…” she paused. She’d said all sorts of things she never thought she’d verbalize over the past couple days and survived. What was one more? “I just… you said, before you walked into the shadows… you said you love me. And see, the thing is, I love you too, and, I dunno, it just kind of means something else if you were saying it as a goodbye and not because… you know… you thought something was going to come of it.” She finished in a very small voice.

“Oh, Yaz,” the Doctor breathed, abandoning the tea and coming over to take Yaz’s hands in her own. “I do love you. I wasn’t just saying goodbye. I meant it with every fiber of my being.” 

Yaz glanced up at her, hardly daring to believe it was true. “Really?”

In reply, the Doctor put a hand to Yaz’s face and pulled her into a gentle kiss.

Yaz wasn’t sure if she was melting or ready to explode, or some strange combination of both, but the next thing she knew, her arms were around the Doctor’s neck and the Doctor’s hands were on her waist pulling her closer, and _god_ it was like kissing the stars themselves.

Yaz was absolutely not finished with the kiss when the Doctor broke away and pulled back. “Yaz,” she said slowly, her voice thick, “listen, I know where this is going, and…” she paused, trying to decide how to say what she needed to say.

“You don’t want this?” Yaz asked, her heart dropping.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” the Doctor said gently. “It’s just, well, remember when you lot came to the TARDIS and said you wanted to keep traveling, and I told you to be sure?”

Yaz nodded.

“It’s a bit like that. I need you to be sure about this too.”

Yaz almost laughed. “Of course I’m-“

The Doctor cut her off with a finger over her lips. “No, Yaz, let me finish. Try to understand. I’ve lost count of how old I am, somewhere in the thousands. Unless I die really quickly, I don’t actually die, I regenerate into someone completely new, and that could be another thousand years from now or tomorrow, depending on if I find something stupid to do tomorrow. I’ve lost my planet and my family and kids and grandkids, and eventually I’m going to lose you too, and I honestly have no idea how I’m supposed to ignore that. So whatever you’re picturing in your head about us growing old together, I can never be that for you. This is never going to be what you’d consider normal, and I need you to decide if-“

Yaz finally cut her off with another kiss. “Of course I’m sure. Normal stopped being an option the minute you fell out of the sky like a proper lunatic.”

She could feel the Doctor smiling against her lips, as though that was exactly the answer she was hoping for. Yaz couldn’t help but smile a bit too, returning the kisses eagerly, until the kettle started shrieking and startled them both.

“We had tea, didn’t we?” Yaz asked dumbly.

The Doctor laughed. “Yes, we did.” She stepped back to turn off the kettle and paused before pouring it into their mugs. “Tell you what, why don’t we put it in a thermos instead and go catch that meteor shower we were talking about earlier? Y’know, like a date.”

Yaz laughed. “You know that meteor shower was last night, right?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I might have access to a time machine.”

Yaz laughed, unable to completely stop smiling.

The Doctor dug a thermos out of a cabinet, prepared the tea, and grabbed Yaz’s hand with a grin. “C’mon, let’s go.”

After a brief detour to the console to park the TARDIS on a grassy hill on the outskirts of town, they tumbled out of the doors and picked a spot on the hill.

The Doctor shrugged out of her coat and laid it down across the cool grass, flopping down on her back and looking up at the stars. She patted the fabric next to her, inviting Yaz to lay down next to her.

With a grin, Yaz took her up on the offer and sprawled out on the ground too, lacing her fingers through the Doctor’s and looking up at the sky. “It’s such a different view from the ground, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Definitely,” the Doctor agreed. “Better view for the meteor shower from here, though! Safer down here, too, I’ve been caught in one and it was pretty terrifying.” She grinned.

Yaz laughed. “And there’s the Milky Way again, yeah?” The band of dark nebulae and bright stars stretched across the sky, becoming clearer to the eye with every moment you took it in.

“Mmmhmm,” the Doctor agreed, and pointed. “Right over there, in that little dark swirl, there’s a tiny little planet called Suivre, and in about nine million years, it develops life.”

“Seriously?” Yaz asked, stunned. “Aliens? In our own galaxy?”

“I’m literally sat right here,” the Doctor laughed. “And yes, this galaxy is their home, or it will do. Proper odd little species they are, too. Seventeen eyes, no sense of smell, and they communicate by whistling. Oh, and they’re so small, they’d fit on your fingernail.” She lifted up their joined hands and pointed a finger, as though to indicate which fingernail they might fit on. “They have the best songs though,” she said wistfully.

“Can we visit?” Yaz asked.

“Might be best to observe from afar,” the Doctor advised. “How would you feel if two aliens the size of cities plopped down on Earth to see what was going on?”

“Really?” Yaz teased her. “You’re honestly asking me how I would feel if aliens visited Earth?”

“Not me! Really BIG aliens,” the Doctor specified.

Yaz could only laugh.

They watched a few meteors streak lazily across the sky over the next several minutes, and Yaz scooted in closer, resting her head on the Doctor’s shoulder and pressing her body up against the warmth of her friend, shivering. “Bit chilly out here tonight.”

“Oh, I can fix that!” The Doctor wriggled out from under her and sprinted up into the TARDIS, leaving Yaz temporarily alone and bewildered.

She reappeared a minute or so later, holding the puffiest blue duvet Yaz had ever seen. Yaz giggled as the Doctor practically skipped back over to their viewing spot, reminding her strongly of a small child with an oversized blanket.

“Here we go!” The Doctor sat on the ground again next to Yaz, tucking the duvet around them to block out the cool air, pulling Yaz into her lap and wrapping her arms around her waist. Yaz laughed and snuggled in, resting her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. 

“Better, hmm?” the Doctor asked.

“Much,” Yaz answered happily.

The Doctor pulled Yaz even closer, taking in the warmth under the blanket in contrast with the cool night air, the earth smelling of grass and petrichor, something sweet that she assumed was Yaz’s shampoo, and eventually ozone as a meteor lit up the night sky, this time leaving a glittering trail, with several more in quick succession. Few other planets could ever claim to have won her over so completely. For the first time in longer than she cared to admit, sitting on this beautiful planet with an amazing person she loved, she truly felt like she was home.

Yaz watched in awe, having a newfound appreciation for the experience now that she’d been visiting space on a regular basis. She looked away from the meteor-streaked sky for just a moment and caught the Doctor looking at her. “You’re not even looking!” Yaz laughed, gently nudging the Doctor’s shoulder with her own in a teasing gesture.

“Already know what’s out there. A billion different stars, in a million different galaxies,” the Doctor told her. “But there’s only one Yasmin Khan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhh my god, y'all. I can't believe I'm finally finished with this one!!!
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed it and if you want to scream with me about DW on tumblr I'm american-auror-story. :D


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